My Grandfather Was a Purple Heart

It really is possible to learn something new each time you have a chance to go and visit family. This weekend, I went to visit my mom and dad and during my trip I also attended a baby shower for my cousin and visited with one of my uncles. While we were sitting in my uncle’s living room, I noticed a very nice picture of my paternal grandfather, whom I never met because he had passed away before I was born. Until this weekend, I never really knew how he had passed away. I had assumed that it was cancer, … Continue reading

Meet a Families.com Blogger – Lisa Pietsch!

As the former Community Manager, Lisa was the first person I met when I became acquainted with Families.com, and has become a good friend. Lisa, how fun to interview you today! How long have you blogged for Families.com? I’ve been with Families.com since September 26th, 2005. I believe we had about twenty-six members back then. When management announced they would be hiring bloggers, I applied for the topics of Food, Weight Loss and Disney. When they launched the blogs here in early December 2005, they hired me for all three topics as well as the position of Community Manager. Eventually, … Continue reading

The Marriage Blog Week in Review for February 3-9

Good morning, with just four days left until Valentine’s Day, it’s been a very busy week here at the Marriage Blog. We’ve done our best to compile romantic activities, letters of love from readers to their loves and of course, great romantic pairings and more. Personally, this has been one of my all time favorite weeks ever in the Marriage blog and I have had a tremendously good time with presenting my blogs and reading Sherry’s. We hope you have to! In case you missed any articles this week, here is our Marriage Blog Week in Review: Saturday, February 3 … Continue reading

Meet My Soldier

It’s been a rough week on our military and their families. We have dealt with an anti-war protest that included the police being told to stand down during an incident with spray paint and then we discovered that William Arkin considers our troops “mercenaries”. For that reason, I would like to introduce you to one of those so called mercenaries: my husband. My husband Carl grew up in a very small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Carl joined the Army at the age of eighteen for two reasons: First, to get some kind of training that would give … Continue reading

Genealogists Who Quilt Have a New Project

Here is an exciting opportunity for genealogists who have a talent for sewing, quilting, or other fiber based arts. It is a fundraising project that is designed to help get the images in the FGS 1812 Preserve the Pensions digitization project online, (so that many genealogists can use those images as a resource). You can help! The FGS 1812 Preserve the Pensions digitization is a joint effort from several prominent genealogy organizations. The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS), the National Archives, and Footnote.com are all involved. People who are “Genea-Quilters” can help, too. There exists a series of around 180,000 … Continue reading

Salem Ridge Press Answers the Call for Wholesome Books

Established in 2005, Salem Ridge Press mission is to revive quality wholesome children’s books the entire family can enjoy. Salem Ridge Press is bringing back books from the 1800’s and 1900’s to this generation of young readers. Solid “living books” should never go out of fashion. If you seek to bring your kids great literature you can trust then give these books a chance. Salem Ridge Press offers books in different genres such as historical fiction, allegory, adventure and young readers. They also carry plenty of historical fiction books that focus on church history. A great feature on the site … Continue reading

In Search of Imperfection

Being the parent of a preschooler has taught me a few things. One of the things that it has taught me is to embrace imperfection. This is not to say that I don’t try to get better – of course I try to be a better parent. However, with the birth of my daughter, I lost all pretensions to perfection. As a child, a teenager, and a young adult, I was a perfectionist. I tried to get an A+ in life, every day and all the time. This caused me unimaginable stress, but I did quite well at it. I … Continue reading

Author Update – Julie Coulter Bellon on Her New Book

Since we last spoke with author Julie Coulter Bellon, she’s released a new novel for the LDS fiction market, “All’s Fair.” I reviewed it earlier today and you can read my thoughts on it here. Now Julie joins us again to talk about this latest development and what might be ahead for her. Julie, “All’s Fair” is your fourth novel for the LDS market and in my opinion, your best to date. Do you have a favorite out of the four? Thank you, I’m glad you liked it! That’s a hard question for me, because each book I’ve written has … Continue reading

Integrating within a Jewish Community

On our kibbutz, we participated in social events, which for Israel, are considered important days like Yitzhak Rabin z”l, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Remembrance Day of Israel’s fallen soldiers. Those of you who have visited a kibbutz, you probably know that a kibbutz unit is a self-sufficient community responsible for its own social and economic needs. Searching for the right community here in Pittsburgh however is a completely different story. As we see it, there are two kinds of communities: there is the JCC community and the synaoguge community. Both are social in nature – one is obviously more religious … Continue reading

Fairy Tale – a True Story (1997)

The world is at war and the people are unsettled. Francis’s family has been hit particularly hard with the death of their son, and her parents are walking shells of their former selves, not seeming to recognize that she’s in pain, too. When her cousin Elsie comes to stay, they take comfort in the craziness of the world around them by talking about fairies. They come in from the garden with wild stories of how they saw the fairies and spoke to them, but Francis’s parents don’t want to listen. Until one day, that is, when the girls steal the … Continue reading