MaeLyn's Musings

I've had a headache for the last three days. Sometimes I can push it to the back of my mind and focus on other things. Other times it seems to take over my brain and I just want to detach my head and stick it in a closet for a couple hours so I don't have to feel it. This is the menu that Peter made. Thankfully, this is Spring Break. Steven let me sleep in this morning since we didn't have to get the kids up and off to school. I ended up sleeping until about 9:30. When I did finally get up and wandered out of my room, my children met me in the dining room. Josh had a towel over his arm and a notepad in his hand as he led me to my seat at the table where he pulled out my chair for me. I sat, and was presented with a menu. I made my selections, and very shortly, Hannah was cooking me pancakes - to order, Peter was filling up a glass with water for me, and John was slicing my orange. I ate my wonderful breakfast - even having Peter refill my water glass a couple times. ...

I started this one last week, but didn't finish it until yesterday. I couldn't figure out what to put in the foreground with the tree for the longest time.

Yesterday was our first day of Spring Break. Steven is working, so we aren't going anywhere, but so far we are enjoying a relaxed schedule with nowhere to go. I said Steven is working. Like I mentioned in my last status update blog , Steven has been working a contract job, standing in for a lady who is on maternity leave. Unfortunately, he isn't particularly enjoying it. For one thing, even though he has been there for over a month, and is supposed to continue for two more months, no one has taken any time to get to know him or even treat him as a real person. He only exists when they have something for him to do, he isn't invited to any office parties, doesn't have access to the company gym, or even access to the company intranet. They have incredibly complex and inefficient processes, and haven't appreciated any of Steven's efforts to improve their efficiency. (Yes, we have over 58,000 formulas on that one page of a 50 page spread sheet, and yes, it does tak...

Due to financial concerns, several months ago I started making my own laundry detergent. I received the recipe in a Relief Society meeting, and next time I ran out of laundry detergent, instead of buying more, I purchased the ingredients for the homemade stuff, which all together, was cheaper. What's the recipe? Well, it is posted in several places on the internet so I don't know who to credit with coming up with it, but here it is: 1/2 C. Washing Soda (It's like baking soda, but I found it in the laundry aisle at WalMart.) 1/2 C. Borax (I actually already had this at home because it really helps when trying to get out ink stains.) 1/3 Bar of Fels-Naptha Soap. (This is good laundry soap, other recipes suggest Ivory, or other types of soap.) Grate the soap. Heat 6 C. water and then add the grated soap and stir until the soap is melted. Add the washing soda and Borax, then stir until the powder is dissolved. Remove from heat. (One recipe I found suggested letting ...

The very first of our spring bulbs opened up this morning. Spring is officially here!

Do you ever have dreams that repeat with similar themes over the course of several days, weeks or even years? I do. When I was a child I used to dream about floating down a river in a canoe. Sometimes it was smooth and easy going. Sometimes there were rapids and it seemed like a roller coaster ride. Early on, my dreams frequently ended with my shooting towards a dark cave or hole in the ground. Later, I would go down through the cave and eventually come out in a peaceful lagoon or beach below. A few years ago, I started having dreams of wanting to take a shower and being unable to for various reasons. Sometimes I would be in a public place - like at a kiosk in a busy mall, with people walking through constantly. Other times I would be at home or in a relative's home, but the bathroom doors wouldn't lock or latch, and people would be walking through continuously. Sometimes, I would just keep getting distracted, knowing that I wanted to shower, but somehow never actually gett...

Peter got to give in a talk in Primary on Sunday. He wrote the talk himself. Here is what he said (according to his own writing): Jesus is our Savior. Well first, what is a savior? A savior is someone who saves, like a teacher who teaches. Jesus Christ came to earth to save us. Then, why do we need to be saved? Well 2 reasons. 1st, we die. 2nd we sin. But Jesus saves us. But how? Think you are a chalkboard. Jesus is the eraser and your sins are the chalk. So when we sin, the chalk draws on the chalkboard. But when we repent, the eraser erases the drawing. But how does Jesus save us from dieing? Well what's the next holiday? EASTER! And what's Easter all about? Resurrection! Resurrection is living after you die. Jesus is our Savior because he made it possible to live with him again. I say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

My kids love St Patrick's Day. Here is how they celebrated yesterday: Josh dressed up like a leprechaun. He was disappointed when we wouldn't let him wear his costume to church.  Hannah drew pictures during church... Watch the evolution. The last drawing was done after she returned home.   After church, the children also watched their favorite Veggie Tales St Patrick's Day Movie: No, we aren't Catholic, and we don't really celebrate St Patrick's Day as a religious day at all (unless it happens to fall on a Sunday, as it did this year), and we don't quite agree with his clover analogy, but it is still a cute movie. Most of us wore green of some type yesterday. We didn't eat any unnaturally green food, but we did have an enjoyable holiday.

I was at a loss for what to draw today, but I felt like drawing something... Does that ever happen to you? I saw a chapstick on my desk and voilà , there was my idea for the day. This is not intended as an advertisement, although I do generally carry Chapstick in my pocket and use it frequently. (Colorado is so dry, I almost have to!)

I enjoy statistics. I get a kick out of playing with numbers. I am grateful for the "stats" that Blogger supplies to it's users, because that is how I know that people are looking at my blog. I admit that I am a bit of a blog stalker. I love to look at family and friends' blogs, looking at the cute pictures they post of their kids, but I very rarely post comments. There's a limit to how many times I can say, "cute kids" before I start to feel very unoriginal and redundant. I enjoy reading about people's experiences and adventures, but I need to work on giving them feedback, at least letting them know that their post has been read. Other people apparently feel similar ways. Hence, my enjoyment of looking at my blog's stats. Since it's debut on February 28, 2008 , my blog has received 11,434 page views. Last month, 515 pages were viewed, and yesterday there were 28 pageviews. So far today there have been 18. Who were these 18? I don't k...

With the time change and some of my tulips poking their green leaves through the soil, it comes to my attention that in spite of the snow which fell this morning in defiance of the weathermen's predictions, spring is not far off. Easter is only three weeks away. I was thinking about Easter - what decorations I have, what activities we do, and in general thinking about the traditions that we have, and I have some questions for my readers. I hope you'll take a few minutes to give me a thoughtful answer. 1. Do you decorate your home for Easter? If yes, what kind of decorations do you use? Is it all chicks, bunnies and eggs? Are they "Easter" decorations or "Springtime" decorations? Do you have anything to help you remember the religious purpose for the holiday? 2. What Easter traditions do you have?  Do you and/or your children get new clothes? Do you give baskets full of gifts and candy? Do you get up early in the morning? Do you color eggs and have East...

Compare this to my sunflower picture here We had a snow storm this weekend. It snowed pretty much all day on Saturday, and we got several inches of white fluffy stuff.  Hannah went to the park to go sledding with a friend, but the rest of us stayed home all day. The boys spent a lot of time on the computer, playing Monkey Island. I read a book. By Sunday, the roads were plowed and dry and we had no trouble getting to church. Today is sunny and fairly warm and the snow is quickly melting. The kids are still waiting for a snow day from school. It doesn't look like they will get one this week.

Here is today's Photoshop project.

This was my Photoshop art project yesterday. I was so busy drawing this, that I forgot to eat lunch and almost forgot to pick up the kids from school! (They get out early on Wednesdays.)

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine gave me a bunch of embroidery and sewing projects. Included in the bag were a couple kits for making stuffed animals. They were really easy to make and include instructions, thread, and eyes, as well as the fuzzy material, premarked with outlines of the pieces and letters and stars for matching. (After a search online, I found where the kits are available to order here .)  I did one a couple weeks ago, and almost finished the other one last night. (Unfortunately I didn't have enough stuffing to fill it completely, so it won't be really done until I can get to a store.) They turned out really cute though!

You: What did you do today? Me: The usual,... Got up, got the kids to school, went to institute, took apart the dishwasher, ate lunch... You: You took apart your dishwasher? Me: Yeah. You: Why on earth would you do that????? Well, it's like this. Our clothes dryer isn't the only appliance in the house that we've had issues with. A couple weeks ago we had a friend in our ward come over and look at our hot water heater to figure out why we've only been getting about 1 1/2 showers worth of hot water lately. He replaced a pipe, and it's working great now, but he also said something like the heater had a six year warranty and it's about twelve years old now, so we'll probably need to think about replacing it some time soon. This was how the dishes looked AFTER the wash cycle! The dishwasher has also had issues. It's only about three years old ( how I know ), but I go back and forth between washing things in the dishwasher because it's easier, ...

It's funny how you don't really appreciate something until you lose it, but it is true. Oddly, the opposite is also true - you don't really realize how bad something was until it suddenly becomes wonderful. I have been having trouble with my dryer for months. It usually took 2 - 2 1/2  hours to dry a load of laundry, and then suddenly, even that wasn't doing it. At the end of the cycle, the clothes were still wet and I had to run it a second, even a third time to get completely dry. Also, the dryer started making loud squeaking noises every time the drum turned. A couple months ago I strung up clothes lines, because clothes got dry just as fast (and a lot more quietly) drip drying as they did in the dryer. Then the weather got cold and hanging clothes outside resulted in things like this: Steven was an angel and tried to help. We tested to see if the dryer was getting hot, and it did seem to be hot when I tested it after it had been running a few minutes, but ...

This was my Photoshop drawing project for today: