MaeLyn's Musings

So I'm a slacker and let weeks go by without posting. I'm still here. Here is some of what we've been doing: In the process of fixing up our house, we completed step one: scraping the popcorn off the ceilings... and this included three bedrooms, a long hallway, the living room and dining room. Steven did most of the work (the master bedroom, the boys' room, the hallway, entry, the dining room, some of the living room), but Hannah and I both scraped her bedroom, and I did most of the living room.  Once all the ceilings were done, the fun part began - painting! We started painting the boys' room, which now sports a flat white ceiling and beautiful blue walls. I hung some curtains, and now the room looks nice and cozy. Boys room before the makeover: plain white walls, no curtains, blinds so ragged and broken we never used them. Boys room after the makeover: blue walls and curtains. Since I took the picture I hung pictures on the walls. I think it looks grea...

Did you have a job as a child? My first jobs were babysitting jobs. I babysat at home for my parents frequently, and I was lucky to be paid for it. I think I was about eleven when I started babysitting for a family across the street. They had two children, and I would babysit the younger one while their mom took the older child to a piano lesson once a week. We mostly watched the Disney Channel on TV and drank chocolate milk for the hour or so that I was over there. As a teenager I had more babysitting jobs for various families, although nothing on a regular basis, and I usually found more for me and the children to do than just watch TV. I had a couple odd jobs for short periods of time, including watering a garden while a family was on vacation and tutoring a friend who needed some extra help in math. My first real job was at the beginning of my senior year in high school, for an after school day care program. That lasted for about two weeks. I think I was really nervous the fi...

What form of transportation did you have while growing up? The earliest car I remember driving in was a brown station wagon, although I do vaguely recall an unused blue car (maybe a Chevy?) being parked in our driveway at some point in time in my early youth. I remember that the back seat of the station wagon faced backwards, and that I liked sitting there. The back seats in the car must have folded down, too, because I remember sleeping in the car the night before leaving on vacation, and it was all flat. Mom and Dad would get up early in the morning and we would be on the road before we kids ever really woke up. Of course, those were the days before laws requiring seat belts and car seats. Eventually our family grew to a size that required a van. I remember a couple of different blue vans in my teen years. We were a one car family for most of my childhood. Dad would ride his bike to work. My siblings and I would walk to school and back, and my mom had the car to do whatever erran...