Lillian A

The family

About Me
I'm Lillian, a homeschooling mom with a love for writing and editing. WikiHow fits right in with that!

I studied broadcast journalism, creative writing, Japanese, and political science at the University of Utah, graduating with a B.A. in Communications. I also served an LDS mission to Sendai, Japan. I now homeschool my three children. In a futile attempt to pay the bills, I also work as a real estate assistant/photographer. I have even been a taxi driver during the Sundance Film Festival to make some extra cash!

Writing is my first love. I write a blog called Messing Up the Averages, have written three (yet unpublished) children's books, and am working on a rather odd variety of other books in various stages of production. Right now I'm assisting my brother in writing a non-fiction book about one of his pet work projects (he's a genetic epidemiologist, which is why he's writing and I'm assisting) and re-outlining a novel I've been working on off-and-on for a few years. I also have partial outlines for a few other novels because I just can't seem to control myself when it comes to this sort of thing. So much to write, so little time!

In April 2007 I ran my first-ever road race: the 5k portion of the Salt Lake City Marathon. This year I ran the Salt Lake City Half Marathon, and I plan to run it every year from now on.

I founded the Salt Lake chapter of The MOMS Club, which we still participate in some, even though my kids are all older now. I also manage a little email list called LDS-SOTD. I enjoy online roleplay gaming and have played Everquest and World of Warcraft.

On May 2, 2006, my parents' house - where my kids and I had also been living - burned in a fast-moving fire and we lost almost everything we owned. It was quite an experience, but surprisingly more positive than negative. After all, everyone was safe and the rest is just stuff anyway, right? Maybe I'm nuts for thinking that way, but it sure beats sitting around crying over burned furniture. We are all very grateful for the wonderful support of friends, family, and even generous friends here at wikiHow who helped us get back on our feet following this personal disaster.

At wikiHow

My kids think wikiHow is great stuff. They've all had fun learning new things, and acting as models for photos in articles. My daughter even got involved, as well.

Aaaaah We're so glad we learned how to make rice socks on wikiHow!

I created my very first article, How to Have a Great Conversation, on a whim.

I also started:

How to Teach Your Children to Do Laundry
How to Overcome Serious Regrets
How to Solve the Flash Mind Reader
How to Wash a Leotard
How to Fast for a Religious Occasion
How to Care for a Grow a Frog
How to Remove Coloring Washed in to Clothes

My other "pet" articles to which I made significant contributions:

How to Homeschool Your Children
How to Make up a Bed Neatly
How to Begin Running

And finally, I completely rewrote someone else's feeble attempt at How to Edit Music for a Gymnastics Floor Routine from my own article request, after I went and figured it out for myself.

Great afternoon adventures with wikiHow:

How to Make a Rice Sock
How to Slice a Banana Before It Is Peeled
How to Do a Cartwheel
How to Do a Handstand
How to Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich
How to Name a Fish