I recently read a book that I ended up really liking called Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist’s Wife. As the name suggests, this is a memoir written by a woman who was the wife of a polygamist. She had grown up in a polygamist family although her mother had decided that this life was not for her and left it when the girl was young. Despite her mother’s warnings, she went into polygamy herself. She stayed in it for over two decades, having about a dozen children before her husband died. She was mostly miserable the whole time. Her second marriage was in a monogamous relationship. This book is her story.

The crux of the tale is the age old story of jealousy. Regardless of the fact that this woman chose polygamy … regardless of the fact that she’d grown up in it … regardless of the fact that she was the second wife and never had time in a monogamous relationship with her husband … she was jealous. She was jealous all the way through his marriage to more than seven wives. She never stopped being jealous about not having his undivided attention. She never stopped needing more physical love than she got. And I think it’s interesting and brave to hear this woman admit that this is what polygamy is like.

I have to confess that I’m a fan of the TV show Big Love and that I couldn’t help drawing comparisons between the show and the book as I read the latter. There are differences of course. Big Love is a modern family while this tale dates back fifty years. Big Love is dramatized while this story is just passionate. Big Love is set in the suburbs while this woman’s family was mostly in rural Latin America. But the parallels far outweigh the differences. In fact, I was surprised to see just how accurate Big Love is in many ways in terms of telling the story of what it’s like to live a polygamous life.

Definitely an interesting read!

Tags: polygamist story, polygamy memoir, shattered dreams

I’m participating in a really fun little blogging project that’s been started by the very awesome, very creative, very inspiring SF Girl by Bay. There are three hundred people participating in this blogging project. Essentially it’s going to be a stream-of-thought blogging experience and you can follow the stream of thought by going from one blog to the next. (The link above shares the details.) Hopefully you’ll check this out – it starts next week and it involves loads of interesting blogs so I think it should be something fun for everyone. And if you like it, there’s likely to be another one like this in the near future so you and your blog could get in on the action too.

Tags: blog it forward, blogger mashup, blogging links, blogging stream of consciousness

I was just reading through an old article that I wrote a couple of years back about lowering your risk of cancer. As I was reading it, I couldn’t help but think that the information I’d shared there seemed so incredibly obvious. Only then it occurred to me that sometimes we need to have the obvious stuff shoved in our faces again and again so that we remember to do it.

If you want to lower your risk of cancer, you need to use common sense to take care of yourself. Eight obvious things that you should be doing to lower your risk of cancer are:

1. Eat right. Don’t eat too much red meat or drink too much alcohol. Do drink enough water. Eat moderately. We know these things but are we doing them.
2. Exercise. Regularly. Even though you don’t want to.
3. Avoid smoking. C’mon, you know this one.
4. Make sure you get preventative shots. Reducing your likelihood of getting such other diseases as HPV is going to reduce the likelihood that you’ll get certain types of cancer.
5. Get outside. Spend time in nature so that you’re not just sitting inside the toxic chemicals of home and work.
6. Green your home. Speaking of toxic chemicals, stop using them in your own home.
7. Get preventative health screening. You need to know early on if there are signs of cancer so you can combat them.
8. Talk to your doctor about cancer. The more you know, the more likely it is that you’ll be able to prevent it.

Tags: common sense cancer, lower your risk of cancer, prevent cancer

I regularly read a few design blogs just to get some inspiration and see some pretty pictures. One of the blogs that I really like is SF Girl by Bay. And there’s a post over there this week that I’m adoring. It’s a selection of different inspiration boards (and walls of inspiration). I don’t have any sort of real inspiration board here in my apartment but I’ve been drawn to the idea of having one for a long time.

I’ve had things that were similar … an ever-changing wall of photos in my old house, a steady stream of quotes put up and taken down around the house … but I’ve always kind of wanted a more organized sort of place to put the things that inspire me until I figure out how I want to use them (or if I don’t anymore).

And I think that one style shown off in the blog post has defined it for me – finally! It’s a set of ten different clipboards hung up in an orderly fashion on the wall. Each clipboard holds different bits of inspiration. I never would have thought of this myself but it’s perfect! I could put everything for one project on a single clipboard. I could move things around as I see a better place for them. They’d be on the wall where I can get inspired but neat and orderly so I don’t feel cluttered.

It’s genius! I need to go buy clipboards now.

Tags: art, clipboards, creativity, home organization, inspiration board

I recently wrote a couple of articles for HubPages about the history of Alcatraz. The first was a general history of Alcatraz. The second was a more in-depth look at the period of time during which Alcatraz was taken over by Native American activists. Hopefully you’ll be interested enough to take a look at those articles but if not I thought I’d share with you some of the key points in the history of Alcatraz.

The history of Alcatraz basically progressed as follows:

• It was named by Spanish explorers who didn’t even land on the island at the time due to the rocky choppiness of the waters surrounding it.
• In the middle of the 19th century the military realized that this island could be useful. They turned it into a military fort.
• Alcatraz switched from being a military fort to becoming a military prison.
• The military abandoned its use of the island. However, it was still considered to be a good place for a prison. That’s when the Alcatraz federal prison was established there. This is the most famous time during Alcatraz’s history. What most people don’t realize is that it only lasted thirty years.
• There were several years during the 1960′s and 1970′s during which it was taken over by Native Americans. The land had been abandoned and activists took it over as their own. They started a Native American education center. A fire ran everyone off of the island in the early 1970′s.
• It became obvious that this would make a good tourist attraction. That’s what it is today. Periodically people talk about turning it into something else – like a big casino – but so far it remains just a place for guided tours.

Tags: alcatraz, alcatraz history, history of alcatraz, native american alcatraz