Daily Bread

I love bread. I love bread.

I love actual bread, I miss real not GF bread (it's been over 4 years living GF!! woot woot) but more importantly, I am craving daily spiritual bread.

For those who have not yet subscribed the lds.org daily meassages I urge you to do so!! These little emails are the happiest ones that I receive each day. It's a short little quote from a talk and then a link. I always end up going down the rabbit hole and reading the talk and a few of the related ones at the bottom. The words are so often exactly what  I need to hear! It's a wonderful tender mercy that the Lord has given us technology and people's whose jobs it is to bring brightness into our lives.

As I was preparing my RS lesson this past week I was reminded of some really happy good quotes and talks, some of which were brought to my remembrance because of the daily messages. I need that daily uplift so badly! Satan has been working overtime on me for whatever reason and I am not going to keep taking that same beating. Elder Holland said:

Only the adversary, the enemy of us all, would try to convince us that the ideals outlined in general conference are depressing and unrealistic, that people don’t really improve, that no one really progresses. And why does Lucifer give that speech? Because he knows he can’t improve, he can’t progress, that worlds without end he will never have a bright tomorrow. He is a miserable man bound by eternal limitations, and he wants you to be miserable too.

No more letting Old Scratch make me miserable! I am grateful and acutely aware of my limitations and need for Christ's all encompassing atonement. That grace is literal saving grace and my daily bread. I know it and I love that I have been given that gift! His grace is sufficient to daily feed me and make me whole, happy and successful.

The grace of Christ is sufficient—sufficient to cover our debt, sufficient to transform us, and sufficient to help us as long as that transformation process takes. The Book of Mormon teaches us to rely solely on “the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah” (2 Nephi 2:8). As we do, we do not discover—as some Christians believe—that Christ requires nothing of us. Rather, we discover the reason He requires so much and the strength to do all He asks (see Philippians 4:13). Grace is not the absence of God’s high expectations. Grace is the presence of God’s power (see Luke 1:37). (Brad Wilcox)

God's grace, beautiful creations and love are all around me. I am grateful and well loved.

Queen of fashion : what Marie Antoinette wore to the Revolution

Queen of fashion : what Marie Antoinette wore to the Revolution
By Caroline Weber
Holt, 2006. 412 pages. Nonfiction, biography.


In a unique approach to biography, Caroline Weber applies Marie Antoinette’s interest in fashion to tell the story of her life. This tragic queen’s life is punctuated with interesting fashion choices and became both her means of expressing power and her ultimate downfall. Beginning with her arrival to Versailles as a young girl, and ending with her death during the French Revolution, we see Antoinette’s human and courageous side as she faces internal and foreign political opponents. This books adds a new facet to Marie Antoinette scholarship and tells her tale in a very approachable, almost novel-like readability.

I had a very skeptical view of Marie Antoinette before this book but Weber’s biography gives new light to why this French queen behaved as she did, and more importantly why she dressed how she dressed. I grew more sympathetic towards Antoinette and even though I knew she would be killed, I dreaded and mourned that outcome as the book progressed. Learning how fashion choices can shape culture and political outcomes is especially fascinating to me because it is an ever present undercurrent of society but so often discredited or forgotten. I would recommend this book to those interested in a more scholarly biography or an interest in fashion, French history, art history, or influential women.

Far From the Madding Crowd

Far From the Madding Crowd
By Hardy, Thomas
Oxford University Press, 2002. 433 pages. Fiction.

Bathsheba Everdene is a spirited, beautiful, independent woman who loves the attention from her three suitors, but needs to grow up and realize the consequences of an inconstant heart. Gabriel Oak, a shepherd, competes for her love against the debonair soldier Sergeant Troy and the respectable, middle aged farmer, Mr. Boldwood. Set in the rural countryside of 1870s Wessex, England,  Thomas Hardy tells the heartwarming coming of age story with rich descriptions of the beautiful countryside lifestyle, as well as modern sensibilities about relationships and social customs.

I had already seen and loved the BBC movie, and rarely does the book impress if I have not read it beforehand, but this is an exception! I really enjoyed Hardy’s lush descriptions of the landscape and the detailed perspectives, especially about the various suitors in this novel. It is fairly long but keeps a good pace as you meander through the countryside and the story line.  If you like 19th century England, strong independent female protagonists, love stories, or any sort of BBC classic then you will enjoy this title!