Ann's Words

Below is the next installment of writing lessons from the Stonewood Writing Group.  You can read previous lessons here:

The Stonewood Writing Group 2025 weeks 1-14

The Stonewood Writing Group, weeks 15-24

The Stonewood Writing Group, weeks 25-34

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Woman Looking Out A Window Painting by George Albert Thompson

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 35
21 May 2026

Hello, my Writing Friends!

Today we will think and write about sight and images and visual descriptions. Sight is perhaps the sense we default to the most often in our writing. We describe the things we see around us, often without thinking much about the process. As we describe what we do each day, we give that context by describing what we see in our worlds, in our families.

This week, let’s think harder about the process and practice a bit, describing the things you see around you. Be as descriptive and detailed as you can (instead of saying you see a tree, tell what kind of tree it is and describe it).

You might start with your writing place. A good way to begin is to write, “I am looking at . . .” and then just keep writing. Where do you sit? At a table, at a desk, in your bed, by a window? Describe your computer or you’re the journal you write in. Where did you get it, what does it look like, what’s inside of it? Where do you keep it?

About a year ago, in another writing group, my friends and I were answering the prompts in The Book of Alchemy. The second of 100 prompts in that book said, “Write Ten images from your last 24 hours.” I wrote about what I saw around me in my office. As an example, I’ll share with you’re the first few images I wrote about here, in my place, because this is where I write.

I am SO GRATEFUL I recorded the images here a year ago because today NOTHING I described is as it was then. For the last month, I have been packing up my office for our big move in July. I took a few photos, but having these words will always bring me back to my favorite work place.

Here’s what I recorded last year:

I am sitting at my corner desk in my office that is in the middle of our main floor living
area. This is where I do my work. I love my office that is full to the brim of projects and collections and resources for my work. There are no windows in my office, so I have created them with artwork and photos and quotes that hang on the wall in front of me. Today I will describe 10 images that surround me here.

1. I am working right now on my trusted and beloved laptop. This laptop has gone with me to Yakima for 3 years, to Africa for 2 years and to Germany for 1.5 years. It has been my constant companion and receptacle of words and photos that tell the story of my life and of those around me. My laptop is old and tired. The fan whirrs inside it, telling me to slow down and let it rest. The keys on the keyboard are worn off so that I can’t read 14 of the letters or symbols, which doesn’t bother me because I’ve known them by heart for years. The laptop is black, a Lenovo IdeaPad Flex Convertible PC. I had to live without this laptop for 13 days (until last Thursday) after leaving it in St. Louis, where we visited the kids last month. I waited a week after Heidi put it in the mail to me, but it arrived with the charging cord broken off in the laptop so I couldn’t charge it. It took 2 days to find a repair man (after we spent hours trying to remove the broken piece in the receptacle). My life felt undone and exposed in a raw way. My words weren’t accessible to me. I wonder how many prayers I’ve prayed for this computer over the years. Probably 100s.

2. Beside me right now on my desk is a 2″ stack of paper copies of images I took of Family Register Books in the town archives in Leingarten, Germany. Last fall I spent 3 days there, digitizing over 17,000 pages of birth, marriage, death and family registers with my phone’s camera. This 2″ stack is the first pile I’m working with. It contains Family Registers from Grossgartach (now Leingarten) with names beginning with F and going until M. I will go back to the A-E families next. Each two-page spread has a template for husband and wife on the first page with their birth and death dates, their marriage date, their parents’ names, Places are also included. The second page has a list of all of their children, birth dates, death dates, spouses and marriage dates and places. It also includes any illegitimate children born to daughters in this family. Sometimes there are other notes, reporting emigration, or a move from the area. I am going through these pages copied from my digital photos, family by family, comparing them to what’s in FamilySearch, adding all the additional information not found yet in FS. The lives of the people in these records range from the mid-1700s until the mid-1900s. So far, of the 100s of families I’ve worked on, only 3 or 4 are families I’m not related to in some way. These are my people and I am finding and gathering them. I work on this project several hours every day and I love it.

3. Next to my current pile of documents are 2 books, both written by my German Professor, Roger Minert. He taught me to read the old German handwriting that fills these pages. I studied the handwriting for a full semester in 2012, which allowed me to extract the entire town of Grossgartach from the microfilms years ago. All of those people (about 17,000) are in my computer database and were then sent to the temple. The records I am working on now are the civil registries (not those microfilmed church records that ended in 1876). These records are all they could give me within the current privacy rules, so I can gather several more generations. The books are “Deciphering Handwriting in German Documents,” and “Wuerttemberg Place Name Indexes: Identifying Place Names Using Alphabetical and Reverse Alphabetical Indexes.” They are my references when I get stuck on a place or on how a name is written.

4. Behind my laptop are 2 large black computer monitors where I can look at the documents and enlarge them on the screen. (The paper copies I use to take notes on and tag if there is someone I need to come back to–after cross checking a date in a marriage or birth record.) The 2 big monitors are plugged into my laptop, and I can work with the images in front of me. While my laptop was gone, I had to work from the paper copies using a magnifying glass, which is still here within reach.

5. My corner desk with my laptop and monitors is not clutter free. Here are the things filling my space: a box of tissues, a small office desk container of various sizes of post-it notes and tags for marking documents and 2 floss pics for my teeth. Another container holds teeth whitening strips, cough drops, mini lotions and breath strips. There are 2 small speakers that can plug into my laptop if I want more sound as I listen to music as I work. One of them hums. There are 3 cups that hold pencils, pens, markers, a nail file, scissors, and a Malian hippo letter opener. My external drive that contains all that doesn’t fit in my laptop is also right here. On both sides of my laptop are notepads of all sizes (most from hotel rooms) with random names, dates and places I jot down while working on a family. Sometimes I have to do some untangling and I often look at original documents to check to see that indexing is correct. I keep notes as I work. Behind my 2 large monitors in the back corner is a dark plastic stacking file with 6 shelves where I keep things like ward and book club and mission directories. On the top shelf of that stacked file I have a collection of things that I can see over the top of the monitors: A art print of a woman from long ago holding a child in her arms. They are dressed as paupers and they look tired and worn. She represents to me my ancestor women. Next to her is a small round framed photo of John’s German Grandma, Christine Meisel standing in a yard holding a basket of eggs. Next to her is a black ebony Nigerian fertility doll, reminding me of the children I lost. In front of those things is my Harry Potter Time Turner, reminding me that my time will be multiplied as I do family history work. And in front of that is a wooden block with the words: Home is Where our Story Begins. There are lots of cords on this desk right now that I will try to hide someday. On the left is a clear square glass vase like one I used in Germany where I keep completed temple cards. Next to that vase is a chime box Aunt Berta left behind that you can turn over and little metal beads fall onto chimes. It’s relaxing, but seldom used. On top of that wooden chime box sits a chapbook Claire once gave me for Mother’s Day that says on the cover: BEST MOM EVER, and a 2nd Chapbook of one of our Yakima Christmases together. Beside those is a postcard map of Carpenteria and a small copper etching of the Grossgartach Heuchelberg Turm, a memento from Grandma and Grandpa. There is one more framed photo behind my monitors of Mary Ellen Edmunds, my dear friend and mentor. [Today she died and I am sad.]
———————-

After describing my corner workplace, I worked my way around the room, describing the books and piles and messes that stack up around me. I ended up with about 5 pages describing my own little corner office. I’m grateful to have these words. You never know when things will change and your memories will fade.

Here are some fun prompt ideas for your writing this week. Begin by writing, “I am looking at . . . .” and carry on. If you get stuck, just repeat, “I am looking at . . . .” and go again.

Go to these places and describe what you see:
My writing place
Our kitchen table
What’s in our refrigerator
Stepping into the garage
My closet
What I see from my kitchen window
Things in our junk drawer
What’s outside my front door
What’s in my purse or bag
What I see when I look into our backyard
The dashboard in our oldest/newest car
What I see when I drive out of my neighborhood

Think of other things that you’d like to describe in more detail. Practice looking for the details. Practice writing the details. Details are the key to making an interesting journal entry!

If your writing time is limited, just mention something new you see each day, or try to add 5-10 more descriptive words to a normal daily entry. Do that every day this week. You might also start a list of things you’d like to describe in more detail as you have time.

As you do this, it will become second nature and your writing will improve. Enjoy the process!

Ann

a random floorplan

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 36
28 May 2026

Hello my Descriptive Friends!

Good work last week describing what you see around you! This week, we’ll talk about a little different angle–I call it “Memory Images.”

In the book, Tell it Slant, author Brenda Miller says, “what we choose to see or not see often says more about us than anything else. When we ‘look back’ in memory, we see those memories. Our minds have catalogued an inexhaustible storehouse of visual images. The trick is to remember those images in writing.”

This week let’s take your writing back in time to your growing up years. Get out a paper and pencil and draw the floor plan of a childhood home. Walk around in that place for a bit and notice how the memories associated with that place begin to flow. We’ll return to this exercise in the future, but this week, I want you to walk into your childhood bedroom and sit down on your bed. Close your eyes then open them in your mind. Look around you. Describe what your memory sees. It may help to say, “I am looking at . . .” like we did last week, but this time your are looking at memories.

My childhood bedroom.

It may also help to pretend you are describing your room to one of your kids or grandkids who never saw it. What would be interesting to them? Here are a few ideas you might write about:

If you had more than one bedroom growing up, pick your favorite, or write about each.
What years did you live in that space?
Did you share your room with anyone else?
Was there a window in your room? Curtains, blinds? What was outside the window?
What were the colors in your room? Did you pick them?
What did you hang on your walls? Did you have a bulletin board?
Describe your bedspread. Did you have a special pillow or stuffed animal?
Did you keep any collections in your room? What did you collect?
Did you hide things under your bed? Or was there a secret hiding place in your room?
Where did you put your dirty clothes?
Were you near a bathroom?
Describe your closet and what you kept there.
Did you play music in your room? Records, cassettes, 8-track tapes, radio? What did you listen to?
Did you ever decorate your room for the holidays?
Could you hear other people in the house when you were in your room?
Did the door have a lock? Did you feel safe in your room?
What kinds of things do you remember doing in your room?
Did you invite friends into your room? What did you do when they visited?
What happened to your bedroom after you left home?
Did you keep any memorabilia from your room?
What else can you describe about your bedroom?

You can do this exercise with all kinds of topics from your childhood. Try to be visually descriptive and describe your memory images with as much detail as possible.

Here are a few other possible topics:

Describe the car you learned to drive in. How was it different from today’s cars?
Write about the church building you attended as a child.
Describe the outfits you wore as a child (school, church, home).
Was there a park or city pool, or movie theater that you frequented?
Describe the place where you had your first, or any, job.
What was your neighborhood like? Did you play night games?
Were there empty lots in your neighborhood? Did you build forts?
What did you see when you visited your grandparents’ house?
Describe a vacation where you saw something totally unexpected.

Add to this list as you think of things to describe–things in your current world, and things in your past. Remember, “When we ‘look back’ in memory, we see those memories.” Our job now is to describe them.

I hope you each have a great week remembering and recording!

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 37
4 June  2026

Hope you’ve had a productive writing week!  We have been talking about writing from our 5 senses.  First, we thought about taste, then sight.  This week we’ll think a bit about smell and how smells can take you to the places they originated.

In her autobiography, Helen Keller said, “Smell is a potent wizard that transports us across thousands of miles, and all the years we have lived.  The odors of fruits waft my to my southern home, to my childhood frolics in the peach orchard.  Other odors, instantaneous and fleeting, cause my heart to dilate joyously or contract with remembered grief.”

In their book, Tell it Slant, by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola, write: “We all have this innate connection to smell.  Smell seems to travel to our brains directly, without logical or intellectual interference.   Physiologically, we do apprehend smells more quickly than the other sensations, and the images aroused by smell act as beacons leading to our richest memories, our most private selves.   Smell is so intimately tied up with breath, after all, a function of our bodies that works continually, day and night, keeping us alive.  And so smell keys us into the memories that evoke the continual ebb and flow of experience.  The richest smells can be the most innocent: the smell of a Barbie doll; Play-Doh; the house right after your mother had cleaned (the hot dust inside the vacuum, the tart scent of Lemon Pledge), or the shoes in your father’s closet, redolent of old polish.  Or, the smells can be more complex: the aftershave your father wore the day he lost his job or the scent of your baby’s head when you first held her in your arms.”

Are there smells you remember from your childhood?  Quickly write down any that come to mind.  One smell may lead to another.   I would write things like chlorinated swimming pools, rotting fruit, fresh manure, plum blossoms, cut grass, cinnamon rolls in the oven or Baby Powder.

When my Mom died, I kept her purse, intact, just as she left it that unexpected day.  It smells like her.  Sometimes I get it out and bury my nose in it, just to smell her smell and feel her near.

Gather items or articles that you know carry some smell that is meaningful for you.  One by one, smell them deeply, then write the images that come to mind.

Below are a few smells I’ve written about from my childhood.  Each smell holds a memory that tells a story.  What are your smell memories?

Burning Raisin Trays

I remember the smell of raisin paper trays burning.  In the fall, when the raisins were dry, we’d all work after school to pick up the bundles of raisins. The grapes were picked and spread on brown paper trays weeks before.  Part way through the drying, they were turned–it took skill to flip the bunches of grapes without spilling them onto the dirt.  Our Mexican workers did all the turning.  Then after both sides of the bunches were fairly dry, the trays were rolled up like a log and left for several days in the sun so the moisture in the raisins would distribute and even out.  A few days later, these log rolls were rolled up like cinnamon rolls and put at the top slope of the row, so a tractor could drive through.  We’d help with this part, driving the tractor and the long narrow vineyard wagons.  We’d take 3 rows at a time, one on each side of the tractor and one in the row we drove in, and chuck or throw the rolls into the back of the wagon, where Dad and other helpers caught them and emptied them into large lug boxes that would then go to SunMaid for processing.

Dad would grab hold of one end of the roll and shake out the raisins into the boxes, then the paper trays were gathered into piles at the ends of the rows to be burned.  The smell of trays burning was the best smell of Fall!  The residue of the raisins and the toasty smell of the paper felt like Fall, perfect Fall.  I loved it. Often big pieces of the burning trays would float up into the air, still burning and glowing around the edges.  Then they’d burn out and turn to big floating pieces of delicate black charred paper.  We didn’t worry much about those airborne pieces– they’d land and go out somewhere in the vineyard.  It was fun to watch them, fly, but their smell was the best of all.

Grandma’s Tomatoes

Behind the old empty barn, Grandma grew her tomatoes.  She had several vines and the tomato worms (caterpillars) always found Grandma’s tomatoes.  We hardly ever had them on our plants at home.  I’d go out in the warm summer afternoons with Grandma to pluck the worms off the vines.  They were camouflage and they clung desperately to the branches of the vines.  Grandma would drop them to the ground, then step on them with her old brown shoes.  Our hands always smelled like tomato vines after that.  I think of her every time I pick tomatoes.

Kindergarten Paste

I loved making things in my Kindergarten classroom at Windsor School.  We did lots of artwork with construction paper and paste.  The paste came in jars with a lid that had a red spreading stick that went down into the jar. It was white paste and it had a smell I’ll never forget.  It seems we went home with artwork every day and the classroom was decorated in our pictures and art for every holiday.  I remember making paper chains.  I remember the smell of crayons and using little blunt-ended scissors to practice cutting on the lines–straight or curved.  I love the smells of a school room.

Vanilla Extract

My mom’s baking advice: Always double the vanilla in any recipe.  When I was little, she always let me smell the vanilla bottle before she put the lid back on.

Burning Flesh

There was a year when everyone was getting warts.  Warts were pretty common at school and Paul, Eric and I seemed to get them too, usually on our knees.  Once I had a wart on the top knuckle of the little finger on my left hand.  I had to go to the doctor to have it burned off.  The smell of the burn was horrible but the scar it left was a life saver for me–it was and continues to be the way I tell my right hand from my left–I look for the scar.  I always know which hand to look at, but I never know it’s my left hand until I see it.

Suntan Oil

We were sun babies. In the summer, Mom took us to the Reedley City Pool every day for swim lessons.  We used Coppertone suntan oil when we were out in the sun.  Mom loved the sun too.  She grew up going to the beach in Southern California.  Sometimes while we played, she would sunbathe in the back yard on our old lawn chairs that were heavy wood with wheels and thick cushion pads.  I think they once belonged to Mom’s parents.  Our newer lawn chairs were aluminum with woven slats.  If you stood on them, your foot went through those slats.  I loved the smell of suntan oil on our hot sweaty bodies.  Later there were Hawaiian-smelling suntan oils that were heavenly.

Cheetos Cheese Flavored Puffs

Mom didn’t buy many frivolous foods when we were growing up.  The two I remember were both only purchased for special occasions: pink and white Circus cookies with colored sprinkles went on every road trip, and Cheetos puffs went with us to the Roeding Park Zoo in Fresno every Easter Saturday when we had our Easter egg hunt and picnic with our Laemmlen cousins.

It was such a special picnic that from an early age, we called Cheetos “Zoo Smells,” because that’s what we associated them with.  It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized that wasn’t their real name.  The smell of them still reminds me of the zoo.

—————-

Now go back to the list you made.  Write a bit about the memories that surround each scent or smell. Write about where you were and what you felt.  Do those smells still exist in your today world?   Can you feel those smells transporting you back in time?  Are there any smells you hate you remember how certain favorite childhood foods smelled when you came into the kitchen?

Have a great week!  Notice how the smells around your enhance your life!

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 38
11 June 2026

Hi Friends!

This week we’ll talk a bit about the sense of TOUCH and how to use this sense as a doorway into your memories. Memories of touch often carry feelings of emotion, comfort, fear, work, intimacy or belonging.

Make a list of experiences from your childhood that involved touch. As you have time, write a memory about each of these experiences.

A list from my childhood memories might include:
Going barefoot
The grass in our backyard
Running through alfalfa fields
Picking cotton
Sitting on Dad’s lap
Sorting the smooth buttons in Grandma’s button box
Warming backs by a fire
Christmas tree needles
Hanging tinsel icicles
Learning to knead bread
Itchy peach fuzz
Wet hair after swim practices
Brothers slugging me
Playing with felt pieces
The soft leaves of a violet plant
Sunbathing in the hot summer sun

Now make a list of things in your life right now that feel good or comfortable to your touch

My list might include:
Jeans and flannel shirts
A cool breeze
Wearing Crock sandals
Kneading bread dough
Folding fabric pieces
Sleeping under a quilt
Reading to a child on my lap
The keyboard under my fingertips
Clean teeth
Warm sun on my face
Sinking into a soft bed with clean sheets

Here are a few other ideas of things relating to touch that you might want to write about:

An inventory of scars on your body
The spanking
The slap
The hug
The handshake
A hand that comforted you
A hand you wish you could hold again
A hug you’ve never forgotten
The first time you held a baby
A time you were SO cold, or SO hot
Going barefoot
Mud
Sand
Snow
Grass
A stone
A splinter
A blanket
Sandpaper
A callus
Wool
Lace
An embrace
A first kiss

As memories come to you, jot them down. Then as you have time, write a word or two about them. Maybe by now you have a place in your journal or computer files for memory stories. These little snippets are fun to collect and save and when the day comes that you want to compile your personal history, you’ll have some interesting pieces to include in that story. They don’t have to be long, just describe what you remember.

Going forward, pay attention to the things that you touch in your life and what brings you joy. Think also about the people in your life who have touched you deeply. Was physical contact part of your experience with them? Pay attention to sensations that impact your life.

https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2012/09/14/stored-fountains/
Here’s a piece I wrote about a friend who lost all sensation in her body and how she relied on her journals to remember what it was like to feel things. I learned a great lesson from her.

Let’s not take this important sense of touch for granted. As you write, take time to describe what you are feeling in the world around you.

Have a delightful week!

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 40
25 June 2026

Hello my dear Writing Friends!

This will be the last email for a little while. We have to be out of our home in 2 weeks and there is a lot to do between now and then. I’ll be focusing on preparing our home for our son, Adam, who is coming to move in with his family. We’ll be living in the Farm House in our backyard through the summer and fall, until our new home in NE Orem is completed. If I can get some emails sent, I will, but if I miss, please be patient until you hear from me again soon!

This week we are going to talk about our 6th sense: Intuition. Some might consider intuition a mysterious supernatural power, but I think of it more as an inner knowing—the quiet sense that nudges us toward a person, an action, a warning, or an opportunity before we can fully explain why.

Have you ever had a strong feeling to do something, call someone, change your plans, or pay attention to something—and later realized it mattered?

We might call this different things, like a hunch, inspiration, an inner voice, a gut feeling, a whisper of wisdom, a spiritual prompting, or divine intervention. Intuition is sometimes described as our sixth sense because it gathers information in ways our five physical senses can’t fully explain. Intuition usually speaks quietly in our hearts and minds, rather than loudly.

Intuition is our ability to know something without consciously reasoning through every step. It is an inner awareness that comes from past experience, deep observation, emotional wisdom, and often, for people of faith, divine inspiration or a heavenly prompting.

Intuition might come as a sudden thought or idea, a feeling of peace, a sense of caution, a persistent nudge, an image or memory or an unexplainable certainty. It is usually gentle rather than dramatic. You usually notice these sorts of promptings when you are quiet and paying attention.

African American mother and her two daughters serve meals to the homeless with their diverse family.

Sometimes intuition says:
Go.
Visit a friend.
Take a different route home.
Speak up.
Volunteer.

Sometimes intuition says:
Pause.
Wait before making a decision.
Don’t send the email.
Reconsider a purchase.
Postpone a trip.

Sometimes intuition says:
Notice.
Someone needs help.
A child needs attention.
A stranger needs kindness.
A memory wants to be remembered.

What does intuition feel like in your body? It’s different for each of us. Consider specific promptings you’ve had. Perhaps you felt calm, or had butterflies. Perhaps you had a warm feeling in your heart or a sense of peace. Sometimes you might feel an unsettled feeling, or goose bumps or you might have a thought you can’t ignore.

This week think about moments when you:

Suddenly thought of someone and then heard from them.
Felt strongly that you should make a phone call.
Changed plans for no obvious reason.
Helped someone because you felt prompted to do so.
Ignored intuition and later wished you had listened.
Followed a nudge that led to an unexpected blessing.
Had an experience you still cannot completely explain.

Here are some writing prompts. Choose several to write about this week:

Write about a time you had a strong feeling to do something. What happened?
Write about a time you ignored your intuition. What did you learn?
Describe the earliest memory you have of experiencing a “gut feeling.”
Has your intuition become stronger with age? Explain.
Write about a person who taught you to trust your instincts.
Recall a time when you felt inspired to help someone.
Write about a coincidence that felt meaningful.
Have you ever changed your plans because of a feeling you couldn’t explain?
Write about a moment when you felt protected.
If your intuition had a voice, what would it sound like?
What circumstances help you hear your intuition most clearly?
Is there a story from your family that has been passed down about a prompting or an inspiration?

We spend much of our lives listening to the outside world. Intuition invites us to listen inward. Whether we think of it as wisdom, experience, inspiration, or a spiritual prompting, these quiet moments often become some of the stories we remember most vividly. They remind us that paying attention can change the course of an ordinary day—and sometimes even a life.

Happy Summer!

Ann

Hello again!

I thought I might send an example of writing about an experience with intuition.  This is a piece I wrote several years ago about an experience I had when I was a teenager.  I still think about this particular experience, and I’m glad I captured it in writing.  I’ve shared it several times with my kids and grandkids.  They love to hear “the black widow story.”

https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2013/10/29/black-widows/

You might think about times you felt prompted to pray for something (a lost item?) or someone (a family member you didn’t know was in trouble?) and your prayer was answered.  These kinds of promptings (intuition) are some of the sweetest experiences we have and they deserve to be recorded.

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 41
15 July 2026

Hello Friends!

We have made our move over to the Farm House and we are settling in for the summer.  It’s been great to have the kids and grandkids next door!  Most of our stuff is still in boxes, but we are up and functioning!

This month is the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.  I’m sure we are all giving our religious freedoms some serious thought and that is something worth writing about.  Take some time to record the things you are thankful for.

The week of July 4th, I was reading the Book of Mormon and came to 2 Nephi 1:5-7,  where these words from Father Lehi were recorded between 588-570 B. C. (italics added):

5.  But, said he, notwithstanding our afflictions, we have obtained a land of promise, a land which is choice above all other lands; a land which the Lord God hath covenanted with me should be a land for the inheritance of my seed. Yea, the Lord hath covenanted this land unto me, and to my children forever, and also all those who should be led out of other countries by the hand of the Lord.

6.  Wherefore, I, Lehi, prophesy according to the workings of the Spirit which is in me, that there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord.

7.  Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shall be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall be blessed forever.

Who were the first in your family to come to America?  When did they come?  Why did they come?  Do you know their stories?  If not, can you find them?

These promised blessings reminded me of a little family history project I wrote about several years ago, which I thought some of you might like to try.  Here is the blog post:

Land of the Free and Home of the Brave
Posted on July 3, 2013 by Ann Laemmlen Lewis

Yesterday I sat down with my large family pedigree chart and I studied it. I took out a pad of paper and made a list of the ancestors in each line who were the first to come to America. It was fascinating. Here is what I found:

Rudolf Laemmlen, b. 1899, Germany to California in 1929, Grandpa

Elsa Schaefer Laemmlen, b. 1895, Germany to California in 1929, Grandma

John M. Smuin, b. 1852 England to Idaho as a boy aft. 1861, Great Grandpa

Emanuel Richard Lundquist, b. 1867, Sweden to Utah 1881, Great Grandpa

Karin Ersson Lundquist, b. 1832, Sweden to Utah 1881, GG Grandma

John Smuin, b. 1820 England to Utah aft. 1861, GG Grandpa

Jane Pursey Honey Smuin, b. 1822 England to Utah after 1861, GG Grandma

Theodore Turley, b. 1801 England to Canada to Missouri 1838, GGG Grandpa

Frances A. Kimberley Turley, b. 1800 England to Canada to MO 1838, GGG Grandma

Frederick Barker, b. 1800 England to Utah 1830, GGG Grandpa

Ann Blygh Barker, b. 1802 England to Utah 1830, GGG Grandma

Esther Hanna Pearce Smuin, b. 1797 England to Utah aft. 1873, GGG Grandma

Elizabeth Degen, b. 1802 Switzerland to Pennsylvania 1816, GGG Grandma

John Casper Degen, b. 1770 Switzerland to Pennsylvania 1816, 4th GGrandpa

John Henry Bushman, b. 1734 Germany to Pennsylvania bef 1766, 5th GGrandpa

Johann Wendel Georg Traut, b. 1689 Germany to Pennsylvania bef. 1739, 6th GGrandpa

Robert Jarrett, b. abt 1630 England to Virginia bef. 1694, 8th GGrandpa

Mary m. Jarrett, b. abt 1630 Ireland to Virginia bef. 1694, 8th GGrandma

Randolph Holt, b. abt 1607 England to Virginia abt. 1630s, 10th GGrandpa

What fascinates me the most is not just that they came, but that the hand of God is apparent in the movings and crossings of my people. These beloved ancestors came to a land of religious freedom where they could find and recognize truth. That truth was restored to this earth in 1830 by a prophet of God. With His divine help, that prophet translated an ancient text called The Book of Mormon. The people in this record were led out of Jerusalem by a prophet of God. They crossed the great sea and came to the Americas around 600 B.C. Their story is fascinating. Their teachings contain the words of Jesus Christ to the early inhabitants of the American continent.

With the exception of my grandparents, every single person on this list who lived after that restoration, soon found that truth and listened to it and chose to live in accordance with its teachings. Those who lived before that restoration, had descendants who found and joined during the early 1830s. And my father recognized it when he heard it when I was just a young girl.

My dear German grandparents lived on the farm next-door to ours. I visited them almost every day of my growing up years. My grandpa read and re-read his German copy of The Book of Mormon.  He told me, “Everybody in the world should read this book and live by its teachings.  If they did, this world would be a much better place.” He was right. He also recognized the truth found in its pages.

Now, many generations later, I look at this list of my ancestors and marvel that they all had one thing in common: they lived according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it was restored in our day. Part of me is absolutely amazed by that, but a greater part of me says, “Of course they did. Who wouldn’t, if they knew?”

—————-

This is a good time to take a look at your family and how you ended up here, in America.  Go to FamilySearch and look for the stories of your ancestors.  If stories you know are not posted there yet, add them.  Learn what brought your people to this place.  Do you have ancestors who were brought here by the hand of the Lord?   Write about the things you learn.  How do these things make you feel?  How will your posterity be affected by those who came before you?  List all the ways this makes you feel grateful.

I hope you’re having a delightful summer.  I sure am!

Love from Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 42
24 July 2026

Happy Pioneer Day, my Writing Friends!

In honor of the day, I’d like to share a talk I gave a few years ago at a DUP gathering.   Maybe it will spark some ideas of ways you can celebrate this holiday in your writing lives.

Remember, you will be The Ancestor one day.  How are you leaving yourself behind?

Love to you all,

Ann

“If we don’t tell them, who will?” Speaking at the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Fall Social

Posted on October 18, 2021 by Ann Laemmlen Lewis

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 43
August 2026

We returned last night from our traditional family vacation to Newport Beach in California.  This year was the first in a long time that our entire family was together for an extended time.  We return to the same villas and beaches and restaurants every year with whoever is able to join us.  Because we repeat the same vacation, we have some pretty well-defined family traditions in that particular place.

Family vacations are fun to write about because the vacation itself is only part of the story.  You go to different places with different family members and do things you don’t normally do.  Often the best writing comes from recording the little things:  who sat where in the car, what someone always packed, an argument at the hotel, a funny or bad meal, getting lost, a favorite roadside attraction, or the way a place looked through a child’s eyes.

It’s not always easy to discipline myself to write every day while on vacation, but at least try to  take some notes each day, then before returning home, I try to write about what we did and the fun experiences we had together, with a few details about each family member.

If recording the whole vacation (current, or past)  feels overwhelming, focus, instead, one small memory and explore it.

Start with the five senses:
What did you see first?
What did you hear—in the car, hotel, campground, beach, or restaurant?
What did something smell like?
What did you taste?
What did you touch—sand, a motel bedspread, a steering wheel, cold lake water, a warm picnic blanket?
What sensation from that vacation can you still remember in your body?
Sometimes beginning with a sensory detail unlocks a memory that wouldn’t come from simply asking, “What happened?”
Other ideas might be to pick one aspect of the vacation. Here are some examples:

The family car
Who sat where?
Who got the coveted window seat?
What did you take along to entertain yourselves?
What music played on the radio?
Did your family sing?
What snacks were always packed?
Did someone get carsick?
What did your parents say repeatedly during the trip?
What was the longest stretch of driving you remember?
Did you ever get lost?
What did you see out the windows?
What was the first clue that you had finally arrived?
Prompt: “I knew we were really on vacation when…”

What did your family always do?
Things we always packed
Places we always stopped
Foods we always ate
Games we always played
Things Dad always did
Things Mom always did
Things the children always argued about
Things we never left home without
Things that went wrong every single time
Things we did that probably seemed ordinary then but seem special now

The place you stayed (A hotel, motel, cabin, tent, grandparents’ house, beach condo, or family friend’s home)
What did the rooms look like?
Who slept where?
What did the sheets, towels, or bedspreads feel like?
Was there a swimming pool?
Did you eat breakfast there?
What did the bathroom look like?
What did you hear through the walls?
What was outside the window?
Did the place seem luxurious or disappointing to you?
What did that place mean to you as a child?

The food on vacation
List five foods you associate with family vacations.  This might include:
Peanut butter sandwiches
Gas-station candy
Ice cream
Pancakes at a motel
A particular restaurant
Picnic lunches
Corn on the cob
Watermelon
S’mores
A parent’s famous vacation recipe

The vacation that didn’t go according to plan
The flat tire
The wrong hotel
The forgotten suitcase
The lost child
The rainstorm
The terrible restaurant
The argument
The car that wouldn’t start
The attraction that was closed
The time someone got sick
The time the family got completely lost
The times you would say, “We laugh about it now, but at the time…”

Make a “vacation inventory”
A suitcase:
A road:
A song:
A smell:
A snack:
A hotel:
A view:
A person:
A conversation:
Something I lost:
Something I found:
Something I feared:
Something I couldn’t wait for:
Something that made me laugh:
Something I wish I could experience again:

Here are a few Vacation Memory prompts:
The first vacation I remember…
The vacation I thought would never end…
The place I couldn’t wait to leave…
The place I never wanted to leave…
The best view from a car window…
The souvenir I treasured…
The souvenir I wish I had kept…
The photograph that brings the vacation back…
Something my parents worried about that I didn’t understand…
The funniest thing that happened…
The day it rained…
The night we stayed up late…
What my mother packed…
What my father did on vacation…
A vacation with my grandparents…
The vacation before everything changed…
If I could return to one vacation for one hour, I would go to…
A vacation you didn’t know it was a special time until many years later.

This last week, after recording the day-to-day fun we had, I made the following list in my journal of Random Trip Observations:

2-yr-old Caleb twirls his hair with his little finger just like his mom, Claire.
Aaron knows where Abbey is at all times.  (Find Friends on his phone.)
Lenna Lew’s toes on both feet are still wonky.
Graham has webbed toes and had webbed fingers when he was born.
The kids are quick to offer to drive for John (they think he drives too slow).
Clark (9) finds windows of time to escape and go read (he’s re-reading Harry Potter #3).
Reese’s Puffs are the cereal of choice in Adam’s family.
Adam likes to put ice cubes in the milk in the bottom of his cereal bowl.
Caleb’s potty training is going well.  He’s in “commando” mode this month (no underwear under his pants.  We took a little porta-potty to the beach.
The big kids still pee in the ocean.
Adam and I both had the beginnings of cold sores.  He prescribed drugs.  It’s nice having a doctor in the family.
John stayed up late most nights to watch tennis highlights.
I stayed up late most nights to do German lessons.
The kids mock me for studying German.  They think I am wasting my time.
I brought books, puzzles and games for the kids.  They were left untouched.  The beach and pool won every time.
The big kids worked out every morning at the gym before playing tennis.
Donut favorites: pink frosting with sprinkles for the little girls, apple fritter for John, cronuts for many of the big kids, maple bar for me, Clark loved his first maple bar too.  Glazed are always a winner.
Margot (6) hid a quesadilla in the sofa crack so she could have dessert.  We found it later.
The kids turn down the A/C.  I turn it up.
Vivy (4) is very confident in the swimming pools.  Margot (6) is becoming more confident.
2-year-olds, Lenna and Caleb float around without fear wearing “water wings.”
The 12 water squirters I ordered were a big hit.
Beach games: Kubb (knock down wooden posts), Spike ball.  Water/sand drizzlers.
Sand castles never get old.
All ages use the boogie boards.
Beach snacks: string cheese, bananas, cheese balls, apple slices, goldfish crackers, kettle corn, peanut M&Ms, Chronic Tacos, and, of course, donuts.
I do not love being in a swim suit.  The little girlies ask me if I’m pregnant.
Claire and Heidi ARE pregnant, very.
Root beer floats (RBFs) are always a favorite late night snack.  (I do not like them.)
The Magnolia trees are blooming.  Reminds me of my childhood.
Costco gas here costs $5.19/gallon.
Our kids all get along with each other and stay up late visiting.
This has been a good vacation.
We are getting old.

A family vacation is never just a trip to a place. It is a collection of people, ordinary moments, surprises, mistakes, conversations, smells, foods, and feelings. Those little things are the pieces our families will have fun remembering someday.

I hope you all are enjoying your summer vacation and time with your families and loved ones.  Next week school starts, and it will be a good time to get back to some regular writing!

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 44
27 August  2026

In 2005, Steve Jobs gave a commencement address at Stanford University.  He told the story of dropping out of college and taking a calligraphy class that later influenced the design of the Macintosh.  In this address he said:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

I have been thinking about this idea of dots connecting in the future.  It really makes me feel excited, as I wonder what will come next.

We are in the middle of some big changes in our lives.  We’ve sold our home of 33 years to our oldest son, Adam and his growing family.  That home was the container that held our lives and everything we owned.  Every cupboard and every drawer was filled with memories and STUFF.  We had about 8 weeks to go through everything and thin it out, donate carloads, and pack up what we wanted to take with us.

We are living in the Farm House now, temporary housing right next door, while we build a new home in north east Orem, about 8-10 minutes away.  The builder tells us our home will be finished in October.  This week they finished putting up the sheetrock.

We’ve had a very busy summer.  Some things in my writing life are far far behind and will need to be caught up.  In time, I will write and back-date entries to fill in the holes.

But now, I am looking forward, wondering what our future will hold in a new place, with new neighbors and a new congregation of friends.   Our lives will be a little simpler.  I love dreaming of my new Family History office and a beautiful quilt room that will hold all of my projects.

And I wonder.  What dots lie ahead??  And how will those dots connect to our past experiences??  What an exciting thing to think about!

I’ve just re-read the post below and updated it with a few more dots.  This is the passage that prompted the post:

“As you journey back in memory, you’ll see your life whole.  What may have felt at the time like a series of disconnected and chance events will take on a flow and coherence that only the passage of time could reveal.  You’re able now to see how the consequences of a choice, perhaps made casually, rippled through the years that followed.  You can see how a chance event led to other events that shaped your entire life.  Memory, in short, can reveal the links, the connections–the story–of your life.

It’s hard to exaggerate the satisfaction this kind of insight can produce.  It’s the satisfaction of feeling that your life, whatever happened in it, made sense.”

This quote is from the book called The Legacy Guide, Capturing the Facts, Memories, and Meaning of Your Life, by Carol Franco and Kent Line back (p. 3).

“I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.” –Jane Austin

I am so grateful for the experiences I’ve had in my life.  I see God’s hand moving me, leading me, and directing me.  I trust Him and trust that the dots will continue to connect in my future.  I can’t wait to see how.

Here is my next installment of Journal and Writing lessons from the Stonewood Writing Group that started in September 2025.  I prepare and send a lesson every week to friends who want to improve their journaling.  If you’d like to join us, please let me know.

Previous lessons can be found here:

The Stonewood Writing Group 2025

And here:

The Stonewood Writing Group, weeks 15-24

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 25
9 March  2026

Hello, Friends!

This week we’ll talk about a fun way to write using one word prompts.  You may think that fabricating something to write about is silly or a waste of time.  Trust me, it’s not.  Any words you record are better than no words you record!  Remember: “Write Once, Read Forever!”  A prompt is like the handle on a faucet that turns and starts the flow of water.  Your words are like the water–sometimes they need to be set free, they need permission to flow.

I have 2 dear friends.  We started a small 3-person writing group a couple of years ago.  We meet weekly in a FaceTime chat for about 1.5 hours.  We give each other assignments and when we’re together we read what we’ve written to each other.  We cheer each other on as we get our stories out.

Last month we decided on our project for this year.  Last year we responded to the 100 prompts in The Book of Alchemy  by Suleika Jaouad, the year before we did the 52 Lists of Happiness by Moorea Seal..  Another book we share is The Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krause Rosenthal.  Her approach to writing a personal history is to do it alphabetically.  I LOVE this approach and am preparing my own personal history with this format.  If you don’t have that book yet, GET IT.  It’s one of the most fun personal histories I’ve ever read.

Rather than writing chronologically, she organized her history by short interesting random topics.  By the end of the book, you know her like you know your best friend.  Her book was published in 2005.  I literally cried when I learned she died of cancer in 2017.  I felt like I lost a dear friend.  Thank Goodness she got her words out!

So, my 2 writing friends and I have decided to write and compile our own Encyclopedias, while we still have our wits about us.  We will pull from personal essays and experiences we have already written, journal stories, and recorded memories, organizing them all  into a fun alphabetical mix of our words and stories.

Our project this year will fill in some cracks in our alphabetical collections of words.  We decided that each week we will give each other 5 words beginning with a letter of the alphabet.  We each choose our own words,  starting with A.  My first words, for example were: Artichoke, Apps, Ashes, Artwork and Aardvark.   My friends gave me these words: Alone, Advocacy, Alfalfa, Angel, Appearance, and Anticipation, Awed, Addicted, Authentic, Aversion.

You can see these words are all over the board and create some interesting topics to write about.  Sometimes we choose a word we WANT to write about, other times they are random things that we know will create something worth recording.  When we respond to each others’ words, we step out of our own boxes a bit.  Then when we get together each week, we read what we’ve written and have a real good time cheering each other on.  Sometimes our responses to words are similar, sometimes completely different.  In either case, reading them together sparks more ideas or things we might tweak in our own writing.  We have a good time doing this.

Another good idea, if you don’t do this with a friend, is to ask ChatGPT something like this:
Please give me 15 one-word prompts, all starting with A, chosen specifically to nudge personal essay–style writing (interior, reflective, grounded in lived experience).

ChatGPT quickly spits out a list of words, for example here are the D words from that prompt that you can choose from:

Departure
What did you leave behind — and what left you?

Devotion
To whom or what have you given your steady, ordinary loyalty?

Disappointment
When did reality fail to match the story you had told yourself?

Desire
What longing shaped your choices before you fully understood it?

Doubt
When did uncertainty become a teacher rather than an enemy?

Discipline
What daily practice quietly built the person you are becoming?

Distance
Where has space — physical or emotional — changed a relationship?

Discovery
What did you find that you weren’t even looking for?

Defiance
When did you resist expectation, and what did it cost you?

Delay
What unfolded later than you hoped — and why might that have mattered?

Dependence
When have you had to lean more heavily than you were comfortable with?

Damage
What has marked you — visibly or invisibly — and how do you carry it?

Daughter
How has that role shaped the way you see yourself?

Dwelling
Where have you truly felt at home — and why?

Deliverance
When did relief arrive, and what did it teach you about endurance?

I respond to as many of these extra prompts as I have time for each week.

Just to give you an idea of what this kind of writing might look like, here are some examples from my A and B words.  This is quick writing, the first thing that comes to mind.  You can always go back and touch them up, edit or add a bit more.

Artichoke –one of my very favorite specialty vegetables.  I find myself waiting for artichoke season. They were plentiful at vegetable stands in California.  Here, the nicest ones I find at Costco.  I steam them, 4 in a pot on a steamer basket, then we enjoy eating them, sliding each petal over a pat of butter on the edge of our plates.  The heart is the prize after all the work, also eaten with butter, salt and pepper.  Yum!

Apps –A relatively new part of our lives with cell phones.  The apps on my phone that I use the most are Gospel Library, News, Calculator, Scriptures (for other languages), Healthy (tracks all my health and body stats), Weather, Notes, Calendar, Maps, Snapchat, Google Chrome, Safari, Spotify, Messenger, Find My Friends, Kindle, Audible, Facebook, Duolingo, Text Messages, LDS Tools, BeReal, ChatGPT, Google Maps, iWatch, Google Translate, Family Tree, WhatsApp.
All of these things help make my world a little bit easier and keep things at my fingertips.  They’re amazing gifts, really.

Here’s my friend’s response to Apps:
Apps are an amazing phenom in our era.   And there seems to be an “applicaton” for anything you need help with.  An app that helps you find your keys or another that helps you track where your kids are geographically.   You can see if they are home doing homework or they are actually at a sporting goods store.   Apps can help you navigate directions while driving or adjust photos and visually repair torn and ancient photos.  They can make you look as young or old as you choose.    One app I have come to depend on is google Maps.  It’s a location/destination finder.   You plug in the address of your intended destination.  It tells you how many miles away it is and calculates how long it will take to arrive (going all recommended speed limits).   But not only that, it offers three potential routes but defaults to the “fastest” one.   Then, as you drive, it tells you how long to stay on the current roadway, then (when functioning properly, it notifies you ahead of time where you need to turn next and the name and/or number of the road and gives the exit off of the freeway offramp.   It tells you where things are most congested along the route, where there’s an accident and if there is a “safety check” (cops checking for speeders.). It has saved my hide many times regarding which route to take in my commute to work.
By way of reference, when I was a kid, GPS was more like this:   Buying a map at a gas station.  Having the person in the passenger seat be “the navigator” and guide the driver as you went along.
Having the female repeatedly ask the male to pull over and ask someone for directions, while the male pride went full blown, silently refused or loudly bellowed that he knew where he was or he’d figure it out. Subsequently, hours were spent with unintended “touring.”
Getting detailed written directions in advance from the person you were going to see.
Calling from a payphone when lost to find out where you were and how to get back on route.
Getting lost.
Arriving Late.
Giving up.

Ashes –When we were kids, we had several barrel incinerators out in the back behind the packing shed.  We burned our trash there, usually at night when no one would detect the smoke (in case it was a no-burn day).  When the ashes in the barrels were too full, we’d spread them in the fields.  We did the same with ashes from our fireplace.
We had a separate dumpster (built by Dad) that was like a large wooden box the size of a pallet where we threw tin cans and glass.  When the dumpster was full, we’d take a trip to the county dump.

Artwork –Recently, I discovered Brian Kershisnik’s painting called “Harrowing of Hell.  It depicts Jesus in a bloodied white robe forcing the jaws of hell (a dark monster with jagged teeth) open with his cross.  Spirits are emerging from within the monster’s mouth, and shown escaping to freedom.  I keep this painting up on one of my monitor screens while I do my Family History work.

Aardvark –on my first day in the MTC, where I learned to speak Afrikaans, our teacher told us, “did you know you already know one word in Afrikaans?”  The word was Aardvark, which literally means “earth pig.”  That was the beginning of my love affair with the Afrikaans language.

Here are some B words my friends gave me.  These are fun because they are not pre-meditated:

Bloody– so many painful and heartbreaking emotions return when I remember the 6 miscarriages I suffered through, watching every day for blood, fearing I’d see some.  I watched for blood for many years, even after I had my last miscarriage, always feeling relief when there was none.

Bedtime –I am seldom asleep before 1:00 a.m.  I try to be in bed by midnight, but I usually read messages, news, and my Facebook feed before going to sleep.  I average 7.5 hours of sleep a night.

Blossoms – I loved growing up in the “Fruit Basket of the World,” California’s Central Valley.  Our farm was in the heart of it, our home was surrounded by orchards–plums, peaches and nectarines.  In the spring, our area was famous for “the Blossom Trail,” and people came from miles around to follow the markers through the orchards and farms.  One of my favorite fragrances is plum blossoms–sweet, delicate and heady.  It’s hard to exhale, when all you want to do is inhale the fragrance.

Belly –my least favorite body part.  It never pleases me.

Broomstick –when I lived in Eket, Nigeria, we had a little friend named Doraty Bassey Davies Udoeyo, but we called her “Broomstick.”  She was a little waif, 9 years old and very undernourished.  She weighed 23 pounds.  Her arms and legs felt like broomsticks.  She’d sit on our laps and felt like a feather.  I often wonder if she survived her childhood and if she did, where she is now.  When we gave the children de-worming pills, her mother, Helen, came running the next morning to get us.  We followed her to their family compound where she proudly showed us a banana leaf with 63 roundworms on it that Doraty has passed that morning.  Those worms were living on what little food she received from the family stew pot.

Blisters –when I was in high school, I had some sort of injury in my upper thigh that bothered my swimming.  One night I took a heating pad and wrapped my thigh, securing the pad with an ace bandage before I went to bed.  In the morning when I woke, my leg was bright red and soon several large blisters formed.  I had 3rd degree burns on my inner thigh.  For several days I tried to drain them without popping them by inserting a needle under the skin from outside the blister.  I didn’t want them to become infected.  One day I was at school and the somehow the school nurse found out about the blisters.  They were quite ugly and my skin was discolored.  She was very concerned about the burn.  I told her I had things under control.  For several years after that, I had burn scars on my thigh where the blisters had been.

Braid– Grandma Elsa had long white hair that she could almost sit on.  I loved watching her brush it as she sat at her vanity with the large round mirror (now in the Farm House).  She’d always pull the hair from her brush and wrap it around her finger and put it on the doily on the vanity.  Grandma would make one long silver-white braid, then wrap it into a bun, and secure it with hairpins that were a grayish color.  Then she’d push hair combs into her hair on top at the front to give the look a little body because her hair was thin, like mine.  Sometimes she’d use bluing in her hair or something like Dippity Do to give it a little umph.  Grandma said she’d never in her life cut her hair short, she just trimmed the ends of her braid.  I loved Grandma’s hair.

Black widow –for 3 years I kept a pet black widow in a canning jar in my kitchen window.  All summer long neighborhood kids would come over to help me feed her (Sophie) flies and bees from our gardens.  I think black widows are beautifully elegant and intriguing.

See also black widow story:

Black Widow Spiders

I hope this gives you some fun writing ideas for times when you feel your life might be boring or uninteresting.  Or if you just get tired of writing about your daily routines, add in a few prompts. Make them intentional (write about things you want to write about), or totally random.  Try to respond to at least a few prompts this week–choose any you like and have fun with them!

Happy writing,

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 26
26 March  2026

Hello my Writing Friends!

Have you had fun coming up with some prompts to write about?  I sure hope so.  Start small and easy with a prompt or two each week.  Add more as you have time.  Type them right into your journal, just to add a bit of interest.  You can gather them all in another document or place if you like.

This week I want to share something I recently read in a BYU Speech called “Fuller Understanding” given by Marion D. Hanks on 16 November 1982.  It moved me and made me think about how reading words written by others inspires jumy own words.  I especially love when a simple account makes me see things in a new light.  That’s what I hope my words will do for someone someday.

Here is an excerpt from Elder Hank’s talk where he shares his feelings after reading a journal entry by David Grayson:

Importance of One Day
Among the wonderful ideas I was blessed to run across last night, some of which I’m going to share with you, is this page with three or four short paragraphs to which I ask you to listen with interest because It’s worth it. From David Grayson, a favorite and beloved friend, whom I know through his books, I read:

This is a well earned Sunday morning. My chores were all done long ago, and I am sitting down here after a late and leisurely breakfast with that luxurious feeling of irresponsible restfulness and comfort which comes only upon a clean, still Sunday morning like this—after a week of hard work—a clean Sunday morning with clean clothes, and a clean chin, and clean thoughts, and the June airs stirring the clean white curtains of my windows. From across the hills I can hear very faintly the drowsy sounds of early church bells, never, indeed, to be heard here except on a morning of surpassing tranquility. And in a barnyard back of the house Harriet’s hens are cackling triumphantly. They are impiously unobservant of the Sabbath Day.

I turned out my mare for a run in the pasture. She has rolled herself again and again in the warm earth and shaken herself after each roll with an equine delight more pleasant to see. Now, from time to time, I can hear her gossipy whickerings as she calls across the field to my neighbor Horace’s young bay colts.

When I first woke up this morning I said to myself:

“Well, nothing happened yesterday.”

Then I lay quiet for some time—it being Sunday morning—and I turned over in my mind all that I had heard or seen or felt or thought about in that one day, and presently I said aloud to myself:

“Why, nearly everything happened yesterday.”

And the more I thought of it the more interesting, the more wonderful, the more explanatory of high things appeared the common doings of that June Saturday. I had walked among unusual events—and had not known the wonder of them! I had eyes, but I did not see—and ears, but I heard not. It may be, it may be, that the Future Life of which we have had such confusing but wistful prophecy is only the reliving with a full understanding of this marvelous life that we now know. To a full understanding this day, this moment even—here in this quiet room—would contain enough to crowd an eternity. Oh, we are children yet—playing with things much to large for us—much too full of meaning.[Baker, Ray S., Adventures in Friendship, by David Grayson (pseud.) (New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1910), pp. 173–75]

Last night at midnight, having done my reading and thinking and praying, I took this pad and single-spaced on it events that had happened during the day. It had been an uneventful day, a day which was supposed to be a kind of a catch-up day, a preparing day for a full week and what is to follow, a think day, a put-together day, a day for refurbishment in a sense, a day of quietness, maybe even a day at home. But when I had noted all that occurred, in the spirit of Grayson’s motivating thoughts, I had a long list of exciting and important events to remember and consider.

Let me mention only one. A neighbor from across the street knocked on the door in the evening with a very apologetic look on her face and said, “My sister was using our telephone, or I would have called first, Mr. Hanks. Do you have an egg we could borrow?”

I invited her into the kitchen and showed her our vast wealth in eggs. We had a dozen and three. I said, “Will you take the dozen or the three?”

She said, “We only need one.”

I said, “Well, you can’t leave here with only one.” So I gave her the box with the three, took her to the door, and sent her on her way, smiling and happy, to go home and tell her mother that she had three eggs. I can almost imagine the conversation. “But I sent you for one,” and all the rest.

Do you know how exciting that is? These great people are here from Taiwan. Their daddy is a professor at the university. They are a wonderful family, and I had the great blessing of sending her home with three eggs. One day she will replace the eggs, and our friendship will be firmer and better.

I met Bob Cundick on his way out of the temple. He has his index finger broken and in a cast. You students know who Dr. Cundick is? He plays the tabernacle organ. I said to him, “How could anybody be so dumb as to break his first finger when he is an organist?” We laughed, he told me about it, and I went on my way.

Well, out of all of this, what happened in that uneventful day when nothing happened—when, in fact, everything happened? I’ve been thinking about the fuller understanding that will come and that may amount, as David Grayson said, to what heaven really is. Out of it came a couple of ideas I’d like to share. What is this fuller understanding? What are the principles which will become far more significant in that “Future Life” of which Grayson spoke? I believe that there are three fundamental elements in life that need to be thought about. . . .
—————–
I love how this shows the gems found in a simple day that might not be recognized or captured if we don’t pay attention to them.  That “fuller understanding” is something I want to seek more of as I move through ordinary days.

It reminds me of this example that came to me one ordinary day as I watched a bluebird pull a worm from our yard:

He Knows Where I Am. He Knows Me

This week read something someone else has written.  Do you have any ancestral journals?  Check the Memories in Family Search on the pages of your family members.  Do you have a favorite author?  Maybe revisit a memoir you’ve read and enjoyed.  If you haven’t read “Zippy” yet by Haven Kimmel, it’s a fun memoir to start with.  Think about how their words flow through you and what feelings they bring to your heart.  Let them change you.  Then write something about those feelings or impressions and how they have moved you, like Elder Hanks did.  Awareness and writing make us better people.

Enjoy your week.  Let’s hope for some rain!

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 27
2 April  2026

Last week John and I attended a BYU Emeriti event where our dear friend, Steve Lund was the guest  speaker.  As you know he served as the General Young Men’s President until last year.  He began his remarks by telling us about how he was called to that position after a phone call from Pres. Nelson’s Executive Secretary.  He was asked to come to Pres. Nelson’s office the next morning at 10:00.  The invitation was a shock to him.

Then he told us about the first time he was asked to speak in General Conference.  As he tried to prepare for his talk, his mind was blank and he just sat staring at his computer screen waiting for words that never came.  He prayed for revelation to know what to say.  What he said next gave me pause.  He said that the Spirit very quietly spoke Heavenly Father’s words to him: “I’ve already given you revelations.  Look in your journals.”

Steve said that he learned to fill his talks with stories and experiences he had already had and had recorded in his journal.  One of my favorite Steve Lund talks is called “Flashes of Light,” given at BYU on 20 September 2020.  If you haven’t read it lately, it’s worth your time.  He describes a transformative  experience on a bridge he had once on a business trip in Asia where, he said, he knew more than he knew.
You can find his talk  here.

This reminds me of an experience I had as we prepared to serve as Mission Leaders in Yakima in 2015.  In the weeks before we left, we learned that our friends, Glen and Elisabeth Mella, who were serving as Mission Leaders in California, were home for a few days for some special training.  I think it was about rolling out smart phones in our missions.   We arranged to visit them in their home on a Sunday afternoon before they returned to San Jose.

I remember asking Elisabeth about how she prepared for all of the talks and trainings she had to give as a Mission Leader.  I wondered if she just prepared a few talks, and then gave them several times each as they rotated through the stakes and zones.  I was trying to wrap my head around how I would need to prepare to speak to congregations and missionaries during our 3 years in the Yakima Mission.

I’ve never forgotten what she told me that afternoon.  She said, “you know, every week something happens that gives me content for the next talk I have to give.  I seldom give the same talk twice.”

I thought about that for a long time before we arrived in Yakima and I determined that I would trust Heavenly Father to give me experiences I could draw from so that each time I spoke, my content would be new and fresh.  I kept a list of all the talks and trainings I gave during those 3 years.  There were more than 200!  And every single week, things happened, or memories of previous experiences (in my journals) filled my heart and mind with content.  It was miraculous!

Last week I wrote about having a “fuller understanding” and being aware of the quiet miracles happening in our lives on ordinary days.  These are the experiences that move us, if we notice them.  These experiences provide content for our journals.

So this week, pretend you’ve been asked to speak at church, or at BYU, or at General Conference, based on an experience you’ve already had (recorded or not yet recorded in your journal).  What have you learned?  What would you share?  What experiences have you had that have made you who you are?  What can I, or others learn from YOU?

Take some time to think about this and record your message to the world.  Then, going forward, practice looking for messages each week as you live your ordinary lives.  Record those gems in your journal.  You may need them someday as you visit with a friend needing comfort, or a grandchild, or a loved one struggling through hard times on a mission.  Heavenly Father is giving us revelations every day, every week, every year.  Are we capturing them???

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 28
9 April  2026

I hope you all enjoyed listening to General Conference last weekend.  YOU were one of the things on my mind as I listened this time.  I wondered if there might be any messages for our little SWG writing group.

Then, on Sunday afternoon, the message came.  It was from Elder Dhi Hong (Sam) Wong Of the Seventy.  His talk is called “Remember, Remember.”  You can read it here.

He introduced his thoughts by asking, “What would God want us to remember?”  My journal mind stopped right there, and I wrote those words down.  He went on to share 5 “Remember, Remember” scripture passages from the Book of Mormon.

I’ve been thinking all week about what God would want ME to remember.  I am starting a list and I will try my best to see that the things on my list are recorded.  Maybe you can join me in this writing experience.  Give it some thought.  What are the important things you have learned or experienced that you don’t ever want to forget?

If it’s not written, it’s as if it never happened.  Let’s keep our memories safe by recording them.

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 29
16 April  2026

Hello my Writing Friends!

This last week I got to speak in a neighboring ward about Journal Writing.  It was fun to meet more good women who are interested in improving their writing skills.  A few of these women will be joining us.  You are all welcome here.

This week I want to share some words from a writer, Anne Lamott.  She is an American novelist and non-fiction writer, born 10 April 1954.  She wrote a national bestseller on writing called “Bird by Bird.”  About this book, she said, “”Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write.  [It] was due the next day.  We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead.  Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said. ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'”

This is some of the best journal-writing advice I’ve ever received.  Bird by bird, day by day.  If you are keeping up with the challenge to write for 8 minutes each day, you will see that it doesn’t take long for your flock of words to gather and take flight.  Don’t let a feeling of recording everything now overwhelm you.  Just take it bit by bit.  A grocery list, a prompt, a memory, a little description, a piece of dialogue, a to-do list.  Just get started and keep it going!  If you run out of ideas, read back through our emails and find something you haven’t done yet.

Here’s a wonderful collection of thoughts on writing by Anne Lamott:

10 Thoughts by Anne Lamott on Writing

1. My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I’m grateful for it the way I’m grateful for the ocean.

2. You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.

3. We write to expose the unexposed. If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. The writer’s job is to turn the unspeakable into words – not just into any words, but if we can, into rhythm and blues.

4. For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.

5. Don’t be afraid of your material or your past. Be afraid of wasting any more time obsessing about how you look and how people see you. Be afraid of not getting your writing done.

6. Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.

7. I don’t think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won’t be good at it.

8. You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won’t really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we’ll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won’t wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be.

9. Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.

10. Because this business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, How alive am I willing to be?
—————–
I hope you have a great week!  Thanks for your notes and emails.  What we are doing is important!

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 30
23 April  2026

Hello Friends!

Today’s interesting topic is Artificial Intelligence and how it affects our world, especially our writing world.  Here’s a sad excerpt from my journal, written last 31 December 2025 after spending the holidays with some of our kids:

I read an article in my BYU college magazine yesterday.  Artificial Intelligence is changing our world and I’ve been thinking a lot about AI and ChatGPT this week, after being around the kids.  It’s an interesting time to be a parent.  We are considered obsolete, not wise; we are uninformed, not experienced.  Our kids today do not turn to us for help or advice.  They are quick to look things up on their devices and quick to believe AI knows best.  No one asks our opinion or wants to know what we think.  We really are considered obsolete and unimportant.  It makes me feel sad.  I think that’s part of the reason why I write.  I want my voice heard, but wonder if it ever will be.  I am questioning this week, if I really even matter.  It’s good we die before this goes on too long.  I don’t think I could bear to be ignored for 20 more years.

I’m happy to be feeling better since that journal entry, but I’m glad I captured the FEELING of what it’s like to be the parent of kids growing up with Artificial Intelligence at their fingertips.

I want to share with you the article I read that day.  It’s an important read.  You can find the full article online here.

Connections Magazine 2025
College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences
The Human Sciences in a World of Artificial Intelligence
By Justin Collings, November 21, 2025 03:53 PM

In this article, the author, Justin Collings maintains, “AI will never have style, however efficient or competent the text it produces. It will always operate at least one remove from the human soul. It will never provide more than an imitation of the real thing, however sophisticated or refined the imitation.”

I liked how he discusses the difference between repetitive data-driven work, or compiled and regurgitated information (AI) and what we personally write or create from our hearts and souls with our own voices.

In his conclusion, Collings writes:

I want to close with an illustrative anecdote. A year ago, BYU hosted Mr. Itzhak Perlman, who at age 79 remains the world’s most celebrated living violinist. Having contracted polio in early childhood, Mr. Perlman’s life has been a constant struggle and triumph over physical limitations. Still, as I watched him mount the stage of BYU’s new concert hall, maneuvering his motorized wheelchair with his left hand and cradling his precious Stradivarius with his right, I thought he looked physically broken. Age and ill health seemed to have taken their toll.

The music he produced that night was breathtakingly beautiful—haunting, majestic, transcendent, sublime. My wife, Lia, wrote in her diary, “I learned tonight what worship means.” We heard through Mr. Perlman’s Stradivarius the singing of a splendid soul. I reflected later that, by his own stratospheric standards, the performance was likely imperfect. At 78, perhaps his fingers could not do what they did at 68 or 48 or 28. And yet this was his gift—God’s gift to him and through him to us—and he would worship with that gift so long as his fingers could command that remarkable instrument to give voice to his marvelous soul.

It was a profoundly human moment. Perhaps someday AI will evolve to produce perfected music—fluent, fervent, without flaw. But it will never, through music or any other medium, give us the spirit of Itzhak Perlman, or indeed of any other soul. Most of us, of course, have nothing like Mr. Perlman’s gifts. But the revelations affirm that “to every [soul] is given a gift by the Spirit of God.”  Those gifts are precious, not because they are peerless but because they are ours—because they represent our unique and consecrated offerings before the throne of grace—a sacred medium by which we express our love to God and enact our love for neighbor.

—————–

I guess what I want to say this week is USE YOUR VOICE, WRITE YOUR WORDS.  You are unique and amazing.  There is no one on earth who shares your voice, your viewpoints, your words.  If you do not put them on paper, they will be lost forever.

Artificial Intelligence has its place in our world, but it will never replace YOU.  Who you are, as conveyed in your own words, is more important than the finest AI interpretation of who you are or what you have said.  Your words are your gift, your precious gift.  Share them!

Happy writing!

Ann

I have compiled our weekly emails in the following blog posts for easy access.  I’ll post them like this every 10 or so lessons.

https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2025/12/30/the-stonewood-writing-group-2025/  (September – December 2025)

https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2026/03/15/the-stonewood-writing-group-weeks-15-24/  (through 13 March 2026)

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 31
30 April  2026

Dear Friends,

Some of you may know that our son, Adam is returning to Orem  in July after being away for 5 years at medical school in Kansas City, then 4 years of residency in St. Louis.  He now has 5 beautiful little children.  We have all decided that the perfect place for them to live is in our home.  We will be moving out when they come.

This is a big change for us.  We built this home in 1993/94 and moved in the day after Claire was born.  This home is filled with our family memories and a lot of STUFF (treasures).  We’ll be moving over to the Farm House in the backyard when they come.  It will be a very fun summer together.

We’ve found a place to go–we’ll be building a new home not too far from here in northeast Orem over by the cemetery.  We hope to move into that home in November, so we’ll still be here for awhile, and I’ll always be just an email away!

So, these last few weeks have been a little crazy, as we pack up our treasures and all that’s accumulated in 32 years.  It’s not an easy job and my head and heart are often bursting with the memories that I’m uncovering as we work to box things up.

This week, I went through a box my Dad sent me years ago, filled with things from his parents after they died.  I hadn’t really inspected everything in that box (there were a lot of German books), I had just tucked it away, waiting until I had time to look at it.

Had I known what treasures I’d find there, I would have looked through it years ago.  I found a large manila envelope filled with old letters.  I will share with you one of those letters.  It was written by my mother’s mother, Ruby, to my father’s mother, Elsa on Wednesday, 18 August 1954.  Ruby lived in San Gabriel, CA.  She died 6 weeks after I was born in 1959, so I have no memories of her.  I grew up in central CA, on a fruit farm next to Grandma Elsa and I loved her all my life.  She lived to be 93.  We had a couple of fig trees on our farms.

Here is Ruby’s letter:

Dear Elsa–
I forgot to send the fig receipie.  I usually make the boiled raisens cake from the syrup left over from the candied figs–instead of the water & sugar I just use the syrup.
We are having wonderful cool weather.
Hope you are all well and everything is fine and dandy.
We had such a grand visit at your home–and still enjoying all the goodies you sent home with us–all that grape juice & such good butter–oh we are rich–
Best love to you all
Ruby

Enclosed was this recipe for Pickled Figs:

3 qts of figs
½ cup salt–boiling water to cover
soak 10 min   wash & drain

Boil
6 cups sugar
1 cup water
1 cup vinegar
2 sticks whole cinnamon
1 ½ tsp whole cloves–cook to syrup

Boil figs 10 min first day
“      ”  10 min 2nd day
“      ” 10 min 3rd day

Place whole figs in jars & pour syrup over them–place in cold water.  Boil 20 min uncovered, seal.

Holding that letter and reading Ruby’s words just warmed my heart!  Both Grandmas in one place!  I wish I could have known Grandma Ruby!  I love how she spelled things and said it was a “grand” visit.  I love that she said “fine and dandy” and the expression “oh we are rich!”  It’s interesting how her voice can be heard in so few words.  Her voice!  A voice I never knew.  Until now, I only had one page written in Ruby’s hand.  Now I have two.

Discoveries like this tell me how important it is to leave our voices, our words, behind.  Your voice is precious and unique, and those who come after you will want to hear it.  Your journal and your letters and emails will be a gift to your descendants.  Let them hear your voice!  Don’t leave them wanting!

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 33
7 May  2026

Hi Friends!

Have you ever read a novel that mentions the food they were eating?  Did it make you feel like you wanted to try that food to connect you with the people in the book?  Often in my book club, the hostess will try to make some food mentioned in a book for that same reason.  Food can be a way of stepping into another world or time, helping you to relate to the people there.

Consider your journal to be that book for your descendants.  Some of them will want to know you better by seeing what you see (through your words) and by tasting food you prepare.  We’ll talk more about using our 5 senses in future lessons.  This week, we’ll focus on taste and how to share that part of your world with others.

Last week I mentioned finding my Grandma’s Pickled Figs recipe and how happy that made me.   I did not mention that another treasure I found in that box from my Dad was my Grandma Elsa’s 1928 German cookbook (photo attached).  Inside the cookbook were all of her favorite recipes written on slips of paper and collected over the years.  My grandparents came to America in 1929 on their honeymoon trip.  My dad was born 9 months later in California.  I grew up next door to Grandma Elsa.  I loved her German food.  Now I have her recipes.  I’m working on translating them into English for my cousins.  I’m thrilled to have them and to taste her food again.

Your assignment for this week is to include a recipe in your journal.  Write it out.  Explain where you got it, when you make it, why you like it, who you’ve made it for in the past.  Imagine a descendant finding this recipe and feeling excited to try it, just to know you better!

Here are some examples and ideas of ways to share recipes:

Whenever I host a luncheon or a dinner party, I include the menu in my journal and a recipe or two.  Last night we had friends over for dinner.  It was easy to look back to an entry made where I served the same thing not long ago.  Here’s what I served again last night.  It’s nice to include some photos with the recipe.
https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2026/03/03/salmon-bowls-yum/

Last week John made his favorite “Congo Bars.”  These are a Lewis family tradition.  I decided to write about them here:
https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2026/04/19/johns-favorite-congo-bars/

When we were Mission Leaders in Washington, I kept a mission blog.  I posted the recipes for all the meals I prepared for the missionaries there.  The moms loved making our favorite meals for their families.  It connected us.  It also saved all of the meal and food memories for the missionaries.  After 3 years, we had a wonderful record of what we ate, all kept and  preserved.  You can take a look here (and find some killer-good recipes!):
https://yakimamission.wordpress.com/category/mission-recipes/
https://yakimamission.wordpress.com/2018/07/02/food-served-in-the-washington-yakima-mission-2015-2018/

Holiday cooking is especially fun to record.  Write down your menus for gatherings.  Gather your favorite traditional recipes.  Write about who makes what and which recipes are repeated year after year.
https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2021/12/19/traditional-family-christmas-cookies/
https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2025/12/23/christmas-food-prep-in-2025/
https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2013/11/21/a-history-in-family-recipes/

It’s also fun to write about memory foods, or foods that take you back to your childhood.  Here are two examples:
https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2014/03/25/comfort-foods-tapioca-pudding-and-pfeffernuse/
https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2013/09/30/donuts-and-berries/

In our family, Summer begins on Memorial Day.  Every year, our Lewis family gathers for a BBQ after returning from the cemetery.  Every year I make the same pot of baked beans.  Here is how I recorded this recipe (you will love this one):
https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2019/05/28/memorial-day-baked-beans/

Do you have recipes that have been handed down to you from your mother or grandmother?  Generational foods are especially important to record.
https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2013/01/06/neu-jahr-kuchen-a-connecting-point/
https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2014/01/19/missing-my-mom/

Don’t let the possibilities overwhelm you–just begin by recording one recipe this week.  As you go forward in your writing life, pay attention to the food in your family.  Instead of saying, “we had lunch,” quickly say that lunch was a bowl of chicken soup or a ham and cheese sandwich with some Cheetos.  Find ways to share what you are eating with those who will come after you.  This will be a sweet way for them to connect with you after you are gone and a fun way to leave yourself behind.

Happy food recording!
Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 34
14 May  2026

Hello Friends!

I hope that in the last week you have recorded at least one recipe that is important in your family.  Remember to do that from time to time and explain a bit about when and where this dish or meal was served.  Start a list of meaningful foods and recipes you’d like to write more about.  Take photos when you prepare a special or ordinary dish or dessert.  Then think about how you can share these recipes with your family members.

Below are some TASTE and FOOD topics to write about this week.  Copy the list into your journal, then record the first things that come to mind.  Answer (write) quickly.  You can come back later to write more if you’d like.  Respond to as many of these as you have time for.

List all the foods you ate today.
Do you eat at the same times every day?
Do you wake up hungry?  What time to you eat your first meal?
Describe your favorite late-night snacks?
What are your favorite drinks?  Do you like ice in your drinks?
Describe how you make your favorite sandwich.
What is your favorite kind of chip?  Ice cream?  Candy?
What foods do you crave?
What are your guilty indulgence foods?
What are your comfort foods?
Do you have a favorite treat?
Are there foods you just can’t stop eating, once you start?
Describe a taste that instantly returns you to childhood.
What snacks would you take on a road trip?
What foods do you only eat at certain times of the year?
Write about something that tasted “fancy” when you were young.
What foods did you hate as a child?
Were there any foods you would sneak as a child?
Are there any foods you still don’t like as an adult?
Write about school lunches and cafeteria food.
Describe the arrival of microwave food, fast food, or diet food in your household.
Write about foods your parents refused to buy.
What are/were your mother’s favorite foods?   Your father’s?
What foods did you eat at your grandma’s house?
Make a list your favorite traditional family foods.
Is there a dish or food that is unique to your family?
Were you ever served something you just couldn’t swallow?
Describe a favorite meal for each family member.  Are there traditional birthday requests?
Write about the meal you requested every year on your birthday.
Describe the first food you learned to cook.
Describe how you learned to cook.
Have you always had a dishwasher?
How would you describe your cooking strengths or weaknesses?
What are your favorite things to bake?
Describe the taste of illness — soup, crackers, medicine, popsicles.
List the most common items on your grocery list.
Do you shop at more than one place for your groceries?
Write about what is always stocked in your pantry.
Did you ever serve a meal that was disastrous?
Do you like hosting dinner parties?  Why or why not?
How do you eat differently when you are home alone?
If you could only eat 10 single foods (lettuce not salad) for a whole year, what would they be?
If you could pick any 5 foods to be calorie free, what would they be?
What are your favorite restaurant choices?  What do you order?
If you knew you would die tomorrow, what would you eat today?
Do you think there will be food in heaven?  Why or why not?

Here are some specific Object Prompts for Kitchen Memoir Writing:
A stained cookbook
A cast iron skillet
A chipped mixing bowl
A church cookbook
A flour sack
A recipe box
A rolling pin
A pressure cooker
A candy thermometer
A lunch tray
A butter dish
A spice rack
A Tupperware container
A picnic basket
A can opener
A bread machine
A cookie tin
A handwritten grocery list
A jar of bacon grease beside the stove
A flour sifter
An egg beater
A recipe file

Don’t you wish you had your grandma’s responses to each of these questions and prompts?  Sadly, we often skip over recording our day-to-day routines because they feel so normal to us.  Please remember that these are the very things our posterity will find most interesting.  Just leafing through my Grandma’s cookbook made we wish I knew more about how she did things.   She tended bees and had her own honey.  She gathered eggs and butchered chickens.  Each year she made her own Bratwurst and sausages from a slaughtered pig.  She made butter and fed her boys raw milk from their cow.  She dipped prunes in lye and spread them on trays to dry in the sun.  She canned and dried and preserved fruits and vegetables for her family.  She taught me how to roll out cinnamon rolls and how to cut peaches.  I spent hours at her side shelling walnuts and stemming raisins.  I treasure my memories of her.

My Grandma Elsa cutting peaches.

My memories of my mother in the kitchen are dear to me.  I love her cookbooks and recipe cards.  I love making what she made and feeding those things to my own family, along with the stories that go with them.  I want to pass all of this on to my daughter and my granddaughters.  Even the boys seem to take interest when there is food involved!

My mother making donuts.

I know my own daughter uses google to find recipes and to learn how to make normal and exotic dishes.  She doesn’t always turn to me, but sometimes she does.  And when she wants to make one of our traditional family foods, she checks my blog to see if I’ve described how we prepare it.  I want to be sure I preserve our family’s food memories and traditions.  This is one of the important things that holds our family together.

I hope you have fun this week thinking about your family’s food traditions and your food memories  This writing activity might be fun to share with your family.  See what they remember.  Ask if there are any recipes they wish they had.  Ask what foods were meaningful and memorable to them.  You might be surprised at what they have to say!

Enjoy your week,
Ann