MaeLyn's Musings

The presents have been opened, and mostly cleaned up. Toys have been played with. Soon it will be time to make dinner. It has been a quiet, peaceful, but very enjoyable Christmas morning. Here are some pictures: Here is the tree on Christmas Eve before we went to bed.  The cats were sequestered in the bathroom (with food, water and litter box) for the night so they wouldn't shred the wrapping paper or eat the ribbon. Here is Steven on Christmas Eve, preparing the cinnamon rolls for our breakfast. Hannah received yarn and knitting looms, crochet hooks, knitting needles and a book on How To Knit. She also received a "Sew a Teddy Bear" kit, pens, and lots of felt.  This is a nativity scene that Hannah created out of a shoebox, a manilla folder, toilet paper rolls, scraps of fabric, pipecleaners, etc. She is very creative! Grandma sent John drawing pads and markers. He also got science kits, a puzzle, modeling clay and a Skip-bo game. Here is Joshua after...

It's a quiet Saturday morning. Steven left early for a scout ski trip. Last night we went to a cub scout pack meeting at which the kids decorated graham cracker houses. This morning I took the kids to a ward breakfast with Santa where they received bags of candy after sitting on the jolly man's lap. (As usual I forgot to bring my camera and had to ask friends to take pictures of the kids for me.) Now they are all sitting around the table trading candies, building candy sculptures and  maybe eating some of their loot. It's almost Halloween all over again. In a few minutes I'll need to put the candy away and get them going cleaning their assigned rooms, but for the moment I am letting them have fun. It is nice when they can all play together happily without teasing, complaining, tattling, etc. In the background the radio is playing Christmas music. It's a nice morning.

My mind is in a frenzy. I'm not sure why. Maybe it is because I think there is a lot that I should be remembering to do right now? But when I stop to think about what I should be doing, I can't think of anything. It's weird. It makes it hard for me to concentrate on what I am doing because I keep thinking that there is something else that I should be doing... it isn't good. Maybe if I made a list? Christmas ...Gifts... check. I think. The gifts for Steven and my kids are all finished, bought, wrapped, done. Gifts for my sister are ready to give her when she comes over today. Gifts for grandparents... still need to be wrapped and mailed. Okay. That's 1) Wrap grandparent gifts so Steven can mail them tomorrow. Christmas... Eve/Day... I went shopping yesterday and got the food stuff for Christmas breakfast and dinner as well as ingredients for making cookies. I don't think there is anything else I need to do now. Primary Stuff... Hmmm. Christmas gifts for the...

The cats returned home from the vet last night and were placed in quarantine in the bathroom over night (per the vet's instructions). They scratched on the door occasionally during the night, but I think for the most part they didn't mind. This morning the first thing Steven did when he woke up was let them out. They don't seem all that loopy this morning. More than anything they seem antisocial, resentful, and terrified that we'll do it to them all over again. It took a while to convince Moroni to let us get close enough to take off the collar/name tag he came home from the vet with. Abish appeared to be lonely yesterday, especially when Ishmael was napping, but today she seems kind of freaked out by the kittens for some reason, and we've had a few cat fights this morning - between Abish and Moroni as well as between Abish and Lamoni. Ishmael doesn't seem to have a problem with them. Hopefully things will settle down and they'll all return to normal soon.

I got back a little while ago from dropping off the kittens at the vet to get snipped. Poor guys. I think it might be a relief to Ishmael and Abish though: they get the house to themselves for most of today, and hopefully the kittens will stop bothering them as much in the future. We had to borrow a carrier from our neighbor, and it was kind of fun this morning trying to catch the cats (Moroni was hiding under my bed and really didn't want to come out) and pack them both into the carrier. The first one in wasn't too difficult, but trying to get the second one in without the first one getting out was a challenge. We managed however. We fit the cage into the van and set off. The cats were really quiet for the first few minutes, at least long enough for me to drop the kids off at school. We were about half way to the vet when they started meowing. It was a fun drive. The clinic we took them to doubles as a kennel, and while we were filling out paperwork another patient came in - a...

It has been too cold for too long. The thermometer on our front porch says it is about 2 degrees outside. Today is about the fifth day of below freezing temperatures and I am sick of it!!! Instead of snowing and melting off within a day or two, like it usually does here, the snow has stuck, and hasn't melted at all. It makes it hard to want to get out of the house at all, and the last couple days I've only left to get the kids to and from school. I cancelled a presidency meeting yesterday... we didn't have that much we needed to talk about, and I really didn't feel like driving on the slippery roads. Also, yesterday I started feeling sick - not flu, but a really bad cold. My nose is stuffed and my head is aching, I think primarily from the pressure in my sinuses. I don't feel like doing anything... except curling up with a good book, wrapped up in a blanket. I wish we had a fireplace and that Hannah and the other kids hadn't finished up all our hot chocolate mix...

It is 10:30am. The ground outside is covered with snow, and the temperature out there is about 10 degrees. The kids have been to school and back already - they only had one hour of assessments this morning. Now they are playing dress up with clothes we brought back from our storage unit on Saturday. So far I've seen Mickey Mouse, Buzz Lightyear, an engineer, a pioneer, and a girl with long brown hair (who looked an awful lot like Joshua). So far this morning (besides taking the kids to school and waiting there for an hour so I wouldn't have to make two trips in the snow) I've cleared up from breakfast, gotten the kitchen cleaned up and dishwasher running (we forgot to turn it on last night), put dinner in the crockpot, taken out the trash, and cleaned out the cat litter. There is more that I need to do, but I'm tired now. The house is still full of boxes and bags from the storage unit that I need to do something with. I'm ready to give away the maternity and baby cl...

I think my energy level might be connected to the weather. The last couple days have been freezing cold. Highs have been in the teens, lows in the single digits. There is snow on the ground and ice on the streets. I've driven the kids to school, picked them up from school, done my basic pick up of the house each morning and prepared meals, but that's about all I've done for the last couple days. I've just wanted to curl up with a good book, watch a good movie or play games on the computer. Today it is slightly warmer. I think the high is supposed to be about 33 degrees. I might actually wash laundry or clean my room or maybe even run to the store to get some things I've been needing. Maybe. It's still cold. I still don't feel like doing much.

Yesterday morning I discovered what just might have been my first white hair. Don't misunderstand me. I've been finding white hairs for a few years - little wiry crooked things that usually jut up from my scalp instead of lying flat with the rest of it. No, this one was laying flat, perfectly well behaved. What made it stand out to me is the fact that it is the same length as the rest of my hairs! Steven trimmed my hair Saturday evening, and that white hair looks like it was long enough to be trimmed with the rest of them. I've been getting white hairs long enough for them to be the same length as the rest of my hair - almost half way between my shoulder and elbow! I mentioned it to Steven last night and he suggested that I pull it. I remember someone pulled out one of my mom's white hairs long ago, and if I remember right, she got upset with him, saying "I earned that hair!" I suppose I earned my white hairs, too, but I have other reasons for not wanting to...