MaeLyn's Musings

Life gets busy. My new dishwasher arrived Monday, and Steven set out to install it that evening. It didn't seem too difficult until we decided to replace the copper water line leading from the wall to the dishwasher. The one we had was old, not very flexible and not very convenient to have taking up space under the sink. The problem came in finding an adapter to attach the new (flexible) line to the pipe coming out of the wall. It took several trips to the store, and sawing off part of the copper tube to get the screw part off the end off to take to the store, to get the right piece that would fit both the pipe and the hose. What a pain! Anyway, the dishwasher is now hooked up and working wonderfully. It seems to have a lot of space. It gets the dishes clean. It doesn't stop running in the middle of the night.  What more could I ask for? ************* I finally finished piecing the top of my quilt. I sewed the borders on Tuesday. Yesterday I pieced together the back. Now I j...

I'm grateful for automatic dishwashers. I'm grateful for running hot water. I'm grateful that my new dishwasher will be delivered today. I'm grateful for my loving husband who uninstalled our old dishwasher on Saturday so it can be hauled away when the delivery people come today. I'm grateful that I have some experience hand washing dishes so I knew what to do for the interim. I'm grateful that while the hot water was turned off all weekend to my kitchen sink, it was still available in the bathrooms so I didn't have to heat all my dish-washing water on the stove or in the microwave. I'm grateful that Steven was kind enough to wash the dishes Saturday night while I went to bed early due to a headache. I'm grateful that I was feeling well enough last night to wash the day's dishes after Steven had gone to bed early with a headache. I'm grateful that neither Steven nor I have come down with the stomach flu yet. I'm grateful that my three sch...

Last night for FHE we went looking at dishwashers. The one we have is begging to retire. One wheel on the bottom rack has been missing since we moved in. (six years ago.) That I could deal with. More recently something in the door broke so unless we prop a chair or something against the door, it won't run. (And if anything, like a cat, brushes against the chair and moves it slightly, the dishwasher will stop.) Just in the last week one of the supports for the top rack broke so one corner is no longer supported and kind of drags. I feel sorry for the poor thing. So, last night we went for a field trip and looked at dishwashers at Lowe's, Best Buy and Home Depot. There were white ones, yellowish ones, black ones and stainless steel ones. There were buttons on the front and buttons on the top of the door. Some had digital displays. There were silverware trays in the door and on the side and in the middle of the bottom rack. There were tall ones with deep racks, and shorter ones ...

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! The kids are all home from school today in honor of the occasion. They are supposed to be taking advantage of the occasion by cleaning their rooms, and while they got off to a good start, they seem to have run out of energy and will power and I don't know if anything has progressed in the last hour. Meanwhile, I cleaned my room, including cleaning the closet and changing the sheets on my bed. I feel like I've set my example for the kids, and now I can relax and play. Maybe I will work on my quilt. Hannah wants to have a picnic in the park if they get their rooms clean before lunch time. I don't see it happening, but they can try for it. On Thursday afternoon I took Peter to the doctor. He's had a blistery looking thing on his thumb for a week or so that seemed to be growing and crusting over. I didn't remember any injury to his finger that could have caused it, and since it was getting worse instead of better, I took him in. The d...

Peter threw up again this morning. When I got up there was a smelly mess on his bed. When I asked him about it he said, "That was just a mistake. I'm not really sick." And he doesn't act sick in the slightest. He ate breakfast and is running around acting perfectly normal. At least I don't have to decide whether or not to keep him home from school. Yesterday started out pretty good. I didn't get any phone calls from the school. I was able to walk to the school to pick up the kids, and so I got some much needed exercise. I worked some more on my quilt. Last night I took John to scouts. The difficult part was the long afternoon after the kids came home from school. I am frustrated because I don't know how to motivate my children to do the things they need to do. Everyone has an assigned room to straighten. Joshua had two homework assignments he needed to work on. John had homework as well as an assignment to clean out the cat's litter (which he had neg...

After one "sick day" of not acting particularly sick, Joshua is back in school. I'm knocking on wood that they'll all stay there and I won't get a phone call from the school: "Hannah just threw up; can you come get her?" The temps today are supposed to get up to 59 degrees, and I want to get out and take a walk or something to enjoy it. I usually make the kids walk home on Wednesdays because it is their early dismissal day, but I haven't lately because it has been freezing. (Seriously, I won't make them walk when it is less than 32 degrees out, and lately we've had several days in the teens.) I'm thinking today I might walk up to the school to meet them and walk home with them just so I can get out and get some exercise. Yesterday I worked on my quilt some more. If I keep working on it I could probably have the whole quilt top done in about a week. Then I'll have to figure out how I want to quilt it. Also yesterday I got to help s...

Yesterday was pretty quiet. Peter slept almost all morning until 2:15pm when I took him with me to pick up the kids from school. After that he still didn't have much appetite, but he ate some food and it stayed down and he was up and running around again. I thought I was going to be able to make it to my presidency meeting this morning. Funny me. Last night after FHE, Josh didn't want much of the dessert he had chosen (peanut butter and jelly cookies) and complained that his stomach ached. At 4:45 this morning I woke up to hear him in the bathroom, losing whatever was in his stomach. So he is at home today. I rescheduled my meeting; hopefully by Friday everyone will be better? I hope so. Or maybe I will have it myself by then. It would figure. Meanwhile, I have been working on a quilt that I started last summer, but put away to work on Halloween costumes and Christmas superhero capes. I think the cats may have been another issue then too. For some reason they can't see ...

I enjoyed a very nice weekend. The weather was beautiful and warm (well, it got into the 50s, which is very warm compared to what it's been.) I finally got to go to the store to exchange some things. I pulled out the quilt I started last summer and worked on it for a while. Yesterday I taught Sharing Time in Primary and it went pretty well. Last night Kristy sent me a text to tell me that a bunch of family members were chatting online and invited me to join them. I wanted to, but Hannah was on the computer and I didn't feel like it would be respectful to kick her off before her time was up. I hurried to get Josh and Peter in their jammies and dinner chores done so as soon as Hannah's time was up I could get on and see if anyone was still there. I was glad that a few were on still, and I was able to chat for a short time before Steven came home from his youth fireside. At one point I mentioned that John had been sick, but I didn't think anyone else was going to get it. I...

Lately I've been reading Hannah's library books. She has found an author, Andrew Clements, who writes fun books about school kids. Last night after dinner I asked her what book she got for me to read, and soon we were sitting on the couch, and I was reading the book out loud to her. It was fun! John was across the room reading another book, and Josh disappeared after a while, but for a couple hours I had Peter sitting on one side of me and Hannah on the other side crocheting while I read to them. We got through about three fourths of the book before I happened to glance at my watch and realized it was past Peter's bedtime and realized that I hadn't seen Josh in a long time. I got Peter to bed, and noticed that Josh was already sound asleep in his bed. I finished reading the book silently on my own, then passed it to Hannah so she could read it. It was a very enjoyable evening for me. I wonder if Josh went to bed early because he was tired, or just bored since everyone e...

Here's a picture a friend took of Hannah right after the spelling bee this morning.

John was feeling well enough to go to school today! That was super because Hannah was in her school's spelling bee this morning and I wanted to be able to see her. Last year she didn't study much, and got out on the first or second round. This time (after quite a bit of studying) she lasted until the fifth (out of a total of ten to determine the winner from a possible contenders.) The word she slipped up on was "lettuce"(mistaking the c for an s), which she told me later she doesn't like anyway. I thought she did pretty well. When I was in elementary school, I never got to participate in a grade spelling bee because my spelling was so bad. I remember one preliminary class spelling bee I got out on the first round because I couldn't spell account. (I still can't remember if it has one or two c's.) I like to do the Sunday crossword, but frequently I have to either ask Steven how to spell something, or be prepared to change my spelling if it proves to be ...

The temperature is dropping. When I left to take the kids to school this morning, the car's thermometer said it was about 40 degrees. By the time I got home it was closer to 30. Now the thermometer on the porch reads about 20, with 80% humidity. It will snow soon. John is home sick again. He has eaten a little and hasn't thrown up yet today, but he woke up with a headache and feeling dizzy. He's watching "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" right now. Peter spent much of the morning working on his school book this morning. He cut out a bunch of flash cards and we played memory - matching a picture with the letter that makes its beginning sound. He's really good at that. Tiny wispy snowflakes are starting to come down now.  I should find a good long book to curl up with. Too bad I didn't get to the library yesterday. Oh well.

The kids are in school again finally. The house is relatively quiet--the dryer is running pretty noisily, but there are very few kid noises. I straightened up the house first thing after dropping the kids off at school this morning, and it is still pretty clean. It's nice. So what do I do now? I had so many things I had wanted to do today while I only had one child instead of four: a meeting, a store to visit to exchange some things, another store to buy shoes for both Peter and me, maybe even a stop at the library. My presidency meeting was scheduled for 9 this morning, the first in several weeks because both my counselors have been out of town. At 8am, my secretary called to tell me she was sick. We usually meet at her house, so I had to call my counselors and arrange for another place to meet - not here, since one of them is allergic to cats. Anyway, we met and the meeting was going well, until I got a phone call from the school around 9:45. John had thrown up. So I had to lea...

Welcome to 2010! I was thinking that a lot has happened for me and my family in the last decade. Our family size has doubled, we've moved 1000 miles, had several callings, and Steven has had several jobs. In short, we've come a long way. Here is the decade in review: 2000. At the beginning of 2000, Hannah was just three months old. We were living in a tiny (about 700 square feet) one bedroom apartment at 107 Via Serena in Rancho Santa Margarita, CA. Steven started the year working for Howard & Tatman, and ended working for Prudential California Realty, calculating realtors' commissions. I had just begun a new life as a stay at home mother, and I had recently been called as a primary pianist. Steven was still working on his degree at CSU Fullerton. 2001. John arrived on earth. Needing more space, we moved to a two bedroom apartment in the same complex. Steven quit his job at Prudential to work at another company for two weeks, that job flopped and he was unemployed...