I was getting all geared up to do another catch up post, but then decided that I'd much rather just do a life update. So here it is! Nate: Nate is a hard worker. He always has been. But he's gotten to where he gets a lot more done with his hard work these days. Efficiency, I suppose you'd call it. He works his buns off at his job, usually leaving before the kids and I get up in the morning. He's working on a really cool new narrative history of the church that'll be sure to turn a lot of heads when the first volume comes out later this year. Also managing several employees, and editing on the good ol' JSP. At home he is an involved dad to all our little ones, always eager to hear about their lives and spend time with them. He brings the fun into the parenting around here. And he's always game to tackle a house or yard project with me, be it big or small. He runs all the time. I'd say at least three times a week. He's training for Ragnar, which i...

Nate and a coworker recently got interviewed about the Joseph Smith Papers website for a podcast called "Mormon Channel Daily." Check it out! http://www.mormonchannel.org/listen/series/mormon-channel-daily-audio/interview-with-joseph-smith-scholars-january-13-2015

Heads up: I almost titled this post "A Big Fat Brag on Natey." So get excited. Nate is insanely busy these days. It seems like we are always thinking our lives cannot possibly get busier and then they do. I daresay, however, that Nate is really becoming quite a pro at balancing all his responsibilities. He's taking two graduate classes on top of a full-time work week plus a daily commute time averaging two hours and twenty minutes. And he's the elder's quorum secretary at church. I'm ready for bed just thinking about it. As far as school goes, we're beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel. One more semester. One more class. And it is NOT a night class. HOOrah! He met with the graduate advisor a few weeks ago and he has officially applied for graduation in May! I will now insert a shameless brag: She did a double-take when she saw the results of the portion of the MA exam that he took last spring. Apparently he passed with honors, which is quite u...

Back in March, the Joseph Smith Papers moved over to our new home, the Church History Library, which is located across the street to the north of the Church Office Building and to the east of the Conference Center in Salt Lake. It's a beautiful building, and I think it's a good symbol that the LDS Church thinks preserving its history is important. There is beautiful woodwork, handcrafted carpet and rugs, and original artwork at every turn. There's even a couple rooms kept at -4 degrees Farenheit for storing materials. This building is not where genealogy material is housed (that's over in the Family History Library), but the CHL does have over a half a million books, magazines, manuscripts, photographs, etc. in its collection. Oh yeah, and more than 3.5 million patriarchal blessings. Anyway, if you are around this weekend, there's an open house on Friday, June 12 and Saturday, June 13 from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. They'll even have some of the collection's tre...

We might as well start at the beginning our customer service woes - last June and Ogden's Carpets. We have mostly wood floors in our house, but decided that it'd be nice to have some cozy carpeting for our family room, so we picked out our fave and eagerly awaited the installation date. It came, two guys showed up, I gave the one who was in charge the instructions (leave a square of wood uncarpeted around the door so we can still open it). He failed to relay them to his english-speaking-challenged coworker, and we end up with a strip of carpet tacking and a ripped out baseboard where the wood was supposed to be. He pulled out the carpet tacking and left. Lame. So Add and I went in to the store and asked the "customer service" man to fix it. He tossed me a tube of putty, insisted there had only been one worker at our house that day, and sent me out the door. So my mean hubby called him (after talking to his tearful wifey), and he studdered his way through an apology an...

Check it out! Nate is famous !

A couple weeks ago I had the distinct pleasure of accompanying my hubby to a swank reception at the top of the Church Office Building to celebrating the printing and distributing of the first volume of the Joseph Smith Papers. In what turned out to be a stroke of luck, I managed to leave my i.d. in the car. As Nate and I were rushing to the parking lot to get it, we crossed paths with Elder Holland who said in a booming voice, "Hi, how are you two cute kids doing tonight?" Wow. When a prophet calls you cute, it must be true. We made it on time and enjoyed hearing remarks from several people who have been involved in the researching, editing, printing, distribution, funding, and administration of the project. And then came the moment we'd all been waiting for - we got our copy! I've enjoyed being in the loop and hearing from Nate about all the work that's gone into putting the book together. He's been working there just over a year, and knowing the hours and wo...

Nate and all his coworkers are officially sending the first volume of the journals series to press very very soon. Hooray! They have been working their fannies off on it for a long, long time. However, there was a major, major headache at the last minute called "the index." To make a long, dramatic story short, Nate and the other editor (whose son ended up in the hospital in the middle of this mess) had to try to rebuild the thing in about two weeks. That means that Nate worked almost 24/7 for about a week and a half. This is Nate: This is me if I ever get ahold of the responsible parties: I can't believe I just posted that picture. Anyway, in order to give Nate a chance to work those hours without being completely guilt-ridden, and to keep Addison and I from driving each other crazy, the two of us took a little trip down to sunny St. George. We had such a good time visiting the family and we canned a ton of peaches with Ma Waite's guidance. Addison had a great time w...

One of my most recent projects at work has been to help develop the index for the first volume of the Joseph Smith Papers. And I have to admit, I dig indexes now, however uncool that is. When an index is well done, it can organize a book in ways that bring out aspects that may not be noticed otherwise. For example, in the first volume of the Papers, Joseph Smith's journals from 1832 to 1839, JS says things like "Oh Lord bless thy servant Joseph Amen" all over the place. Since not many people are going to sit down and read the volume cover to cover, it's only by way of an index entry "Joseph Smith, prayers of" that a researcher would be able to fully realize the weight JS puts on prayer, and study the cultural implications of writing prayers into a personal journal. Kind of cool. (By the way, good professional indexers make six figures a year. Looking for a career change? Also by the way, the first volume of the Papers is available for preorder on the distrib...

Exciting news about my job, the Joseph Smith Papers: Today the LDS Church officially announced the publisher will be the just-created Church Historian's Press. Today also marks the launch of the project's website, josephsmithpapers.net . Check out "Project Organization" to see the cool folks I get to hobnob with every day. They keep me around because I know where commas go and don't go. (Just don't look too closely at the website. It could use a proofread.) Finally, the press release promises the first volume this year. Pray for us.