MaeLyn's Musings

Time: Saturday evening, around 7pm. Place: Our neighborhood, a couple houses up the greenbelt. Exact location unknown. What: Peter encountered some bees. Actually, I think they were wasps or yellow jackets. One way or another, he came home that evening crying loudly that he'd been stung, and even brought a couple passengers into the house with him, clinging to his shirt. He complained loudest about the sting on his finger and one on his head by his ear, but he also sported sting marks on his wrist, arm, back and next to his eye. While they hurt a lot, they didn't seem to swell up much that night. The next morning, however, he was definitely swollen, making him look almost like he had a black eye at church. Peter thrived in the attention he received because of the eye. This morning, when the swelling in his eye and finger hadn't visibly decreased, I told him I needed to find something to give him to make the swelling go down. He replied, "No! I like my eye this w

Where did you live while growing up? House plan of the yellow house to the best of my memory. I was born in Goleta, California, in the United States of America. The first year or two of my life was spent living in a condo with my parents and older sister, before my family moved to a small yellow house in the same town. This is the first home I can really remember, and it was here that I spent my childhood. The driveway in front of the house curved around the lawn, ending in a garage door that was perpendicular to the street. The front of the garage was concealed by two tall trees (which I spent a fair amount of time climbing), as well as a few smaller bushes. I remember that the garage wall frequently hosted a family of snails. I remember that the driveway had a low spot next to the lawn, where a muddy puddle would form after a rain, which was perfect for floating small paper boats. The front door opened on a short entry hall. To the right was the kitchen, straight ahead was anoth

The kids have been in school for an entire week now! Wow! They seem to be enjoying school a lot, especially Peter, who continues to tell me ALL about his day. I love it! Our kitchen as it was when we moved in. While they've been in school, I've been working on a project here at home. A few years ago, we put our house on the market, in the hopes that we could sell it and move somewhere bigger. In preparation for that, I painted our dark brown cupboards yellow. As you might be aware, we didn't end up moving, we are still here, and the paint has begun peeling from the edges of the cupboard doors and drawers. As part of the process of fixing up our condo, I thought I would repaint them.   Our kitchen after painting the cupboards A drawer today Monday I removed the five lower cupboard doors, smeared them with paint stripper and began the long process of preparing them to be repainted. In the process, I discovered what went wrong the first time - I hadn't r

What did you do when you were a child that got you in the most trouble and how did your parents handle it? In trouble? Me? I was always a perfect angel! I never got in trouble! Okay... I do remember one time... It seems I had an imaginary friend as a little girl. Her name was Suzy I think. Anyway, at dinner one evening I was pretending to be her and not behaving quite as nicely as my usually angelic self. My frustrated parents would tell "MaeLyn" to behave and I would reply, "I'm not MaeLyn, I'm Suzy!" Finally, my frustrated parents showed me to the front door and told "Suzy" to go home and send "MaeLyn" back. I ended up sitting on the front porch, a very confused little girl. I realized, of course, that I really was "MaeLyn" however, it didn't occur to me that I could just walk back in the door, say "I'm MaeLyn" and that all would be fine. It was very clear in my mind that my parents had just kicked me out of

List a few of the simple things in life that make you smile and tell why. Okay. This may give away the insanity of how my mind works. These are a few of my favorite things: Frogs. I'm not sure why. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they are my favorite color, that they like water, and something about the shape of their heads make them look like they are smiling. Daffodils. I love the delicate shape of these bright and cheerful flowers. They kind of remind me of a cross between a tea cup on a saucer and a trumpet. Puffy white clouds against a blue blue sky. You know the kind of clouds I mean - the ones that are so easy to see pictures in. I like the contrast of stark white against blue. The crisp snap of a fresh vegetable breaking in half. It doesn't matter if it is a carrot, celery, or, as I enjoyed yesterday, a stalk of raw broccoli, but I find the sound to be very satisfying to some random part of my soul. Come to think of it, biting into a fresh, crisp apple o

What did your parents do for work while you were growing up? When I was growing up, my mother was a busy stay at home Mom, with several young children at home. I don't remember her ever working outside the home until I was married and gone. She was always busy with something or other, but I do remember coming home from school to see her folding laundry while watching "Little House on the Prairie" or "Highway to Heaven" on TV. From the time he graduated from college, my Dad worked as a computer programmer at a company called Burroughs, which merged with another company to become Unisys in 1986. He stayed with that company until he retired. As a result of the merger, our family moved to Mission Viejo CA, and I remember that one of the qualities they were looking for in buying a house there was that it be located within biking distance from Dad's new work. Dad almost always rode his bike to work and back. At home we enjoyed the benefits of Dad's being a co

Two days into the school year... so far so good. Hannah got her schedule with Honors classes yesterday, seems to know her way around and doesn't appear to have any worries about anything. She has decided to learn to play the viola in her orchestra class. Both John and Josh say they like their teachers. Other than that, they haven't offered much information about what they did at school, other than which Special (Music, Art or PE) they had. Peter is still loving kindergarten, and unlike my other kids, he actually tells me about what he did! Yesterday, he began with, "When we got to school the teacher showed us where to put our back packs..." he told me they played "mud tag" in PE, and the teacher read Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See to them, and then he started drawing a picture about the story, but he didn't finish so he'll need to finish it tomorrow. I'm glad he is enjoying it and I hope his enthusiasm lasts throughout the school year. M

It's official. My baby is in kindergarten, my oldest is in Middle School. All my children are in school, or were, for about fifteen minutes today. I wasn't able to see Hannah off. She took off walking, headed for the bus stop at the same time I started loading the boys into the car to head to school. I didn't follow the bus to her school. I didn't take pictures in front of the school. I didn't even take pictures of her getting on a school bus for the first time (that wasn't a field trip). I hope she is enjoying her day. Last night we went to the open house at the middle school, and talked to someone about getting her into honors classes. Apparently her 5th grade teacher hadn't passed on the forms to get her in, but after the lady looked up her CSAP scores, she admitted that there was no question Hannah should be in honors. She took care of it, and Hannah's schedule should be changed either today or tomorrow. She was able to meet most of her teachers and

"Tell about an experience with one of your children's teachers." Hannah turned five one day after the cut off date to get into kindergarten that year. No matter how ready she was, the school would not bend the rules in the slightest to let her in. Not having the means to put her in preschool, I kept her home that year, but got her kindergarten work books to work on. At home, Hannah learned her ABCs and was soon putting letters together into words and sentences. A year later, she was allowed into kindergarten, just before she turned six. During the first week of school, she wrote a story, and her kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Wilson, was very impressed by it. She showed Hannah's story to the principal, and then to the district people and finally managed to do what I hadn't been able to do on my own - get Hannah moved up to first grade, where she would have been if she had been allowed to start kindergarten the year before. I will always feel grateful to Mrs Wilson for

Last night I went to a Relief Society meeting where we learned about journals, family history, photography, and scrap booking. One of the sisters who taught mentioned that we need to find a method of recording life's events that works for us, and that a person can still get into heaven even if she doesn't scrapbook. What a relief! I have made a few scrap books - one for my high school years (as a young womens project), one for my college years, and one for my mission. (I put these together in the month or two after I came home from my mission, before I started working - when I didn't have much else to do.) I have put together about 20 pages since I got married, but that's it. For years my "scrap book" was my web site, but even that has been pushed to the side in recent years. As for journal writing, I have been a sporadic journal writer at best. I guess now the closest thing I have to a journal is this blog. And you can see how often I write here - not daily b

Yesterday we went to an orientation at the middle school. I still find it difficult to believe that Hannah will be in middle school, and now it is less than a week away. Wow. I was grateful that they had a parent meeting, while the 6th graders were learning the same things and getting their tour of the school and trying out their lockers. I like that the school has a website where we can see what homework has been assigned (not that I'm worried about Hannah completing her homework, but it's nice to have a way to see when she should be studying or completing a project.) I like that we will be able to check on her grades any time online, and so won't be surprised when report cards come home. I like how the 6th graders get a six week introduction to each of the electives the school offers so they can make informed decisions when selecting their 7th and 8th grade electives. I am a little concerned that Hannah isn't currently registered for honors classes, even though we fil