MaeLyn's Musings

This weekend was one of those crazy-yet-good ones. It's kind of a relief to have the kids back in school and a return to normality... for the most part. Saturday morning, Josh and Peter got to attend STEMosphere , an event put on at DU that allowed kids to explore science. Josh went early and joined with his team of three girls from his school to create a contraption that would crack an egg into a pan without getting shells in it. Peter wasn't on a team, so he was able to go on a school bus a little later, but he was able to explore and experiment with the different exhibits. One he particularly liked was building a tower. I understand that there was also a snow cone machine that was powered by riding a bicycle. Josh's teacher took this video of his group at the judging of their contraption: Peter arrived home on the bus a little after 12:30. Josh didn't return home until about 3:30 in the afternoon, but I think that they both had a lot of fun. Also on Saturday,...

Last night was our Stake Auxiliary Training. (Is it just me or is the word 'auxiliary' really hard to pronounce?) As a teacher in Relief Society, I was invited to attend, and I'm really glad that I went. I learned a lot about how to be a better teacher. Here are some things that were taught. (These are from the notes I took during the meetings. I didn't always catch who said things because I was busy scribbling down what they said. Some of these are quotes by general authorities, etc. I apologize that I don't always give credit where credit is due.) "Who we are is not who we can become." "Lessons learned in the home last the longest." "Only the home can compare to the temple in sacredness." Learn together with our families and with one another. (As parents and teachers, we are not 'done' learning ourselves!) Focus on the covenants that each family member is working towards. What we learn in Relief Society (and other ch...

Time management can be an interesting thing. Each day has twenty four hours. I like to spend at least 7-8 of those hours sleeping. That leaves 16-17 hours of time each day to do stuff. Kind of. 15 minutes of each day is spent in family scripture reading and family prayer. About half an hour each day is spent in personal prayer and scripture study. About an hour and a half each week day is spent exercising. (This includes the time spent walking my kids to and from school.) About half an hour a day with personal showering/ dressing/ grooming activities. I spend about two and a half hours each day either preparing or eating or cleaning up from meals and at least 15 minutes a day just straightening up and picking up clutter. All that is only about 5 1/2 hours. That leaves 10 1/2 hours or so each day to do whatever, right? Well, then there is the house cleaning - the vacuuming, mopping, dusting, organizing. I probably spend two or three hours a week doing housework. (I could spend more,...

Steven went to a lot of effort to upgrade our internet connection a week or so ago. We switched telephone companies and upgraded our DSL connection to one that is supposed to be faster. I'm not sure whether it really is faster or not. Sometimes it does seem like pages are loading faster, and other times I don't notice any difference. Somehow every evening around 5pm it seems to slow to a crawl.  Yesterday I was having issues with pages not loading completely. I never figured out whether it was my computer, the internet connection, or a problem with the site itself, but I was having problems with Blogger, Facebook and Google, while other pages seemed to work fine, so I don't know how it could be that all three of those sites could be having problems on the same day, or how my internet connection can have problems only with specific sites. I got frustrated though, and read an Agatha Christie book instead of blogging. Somehow in the process of switching telephone compa...

I planted sunflowers along our fence this summer. They grew tall and yellow and bright, following the sun. They were cheerful and brought smiles to my face. And then it rained. And it rained and it rained some more. I'm afraid my bright cheerful sunflowers forgot what it felt like to reach for the sun, and they bent over with weight and weariness. Now they remind me more of giant shower heads. Poor sunflowers.

In January of 1999, I was struck with a bad case of exhaustion. I had no energy at all, and I wasn't doing anything that would account for it. I remember telling my mom about my affliction, and she asked if there was a chance I was pregnant. I acquired a pregnancy test, and sure enough, I was. The next nine months were a roller coaster of emotions. Steven and I were excited, nervous, elated and terrified of all that parenthood would bring. An ultrasound early on determined my due date as September 16th. On September 15th, I was at a doctor's appointment, and my doctor laid her hand on my swollen belly and made a passing comment that I was having a contraction. "A contraction? It that what it feels like?" It didn't hurt at all, but I hadn't realized that the hardening of my belly was actually a contraction. With that knowledge, I realized that I was having contractions all the time! As I walked from the doctor's office the half mile or so to the office ...

Yesterday I got to teach in Relief Society again. The lesson was chapter 19 of Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Fielding Smith, entitled, In the World but Not of the World . Before Relief Society began, Steven helped me set up our lap top and a projector we had borrowed from the library. On the table in front, I set out four visual aids I had brought: a calendar, a glass bottle, a barbie doll, and my missionary badge. On the chalk board, I wrote the title of the lesson, as well as the words: What? How? Why? Challenges? Blessings? I began my lesson by showing a movie, entitled Dare to Stand Alone. I felt like it set the tone for the lesson, and it helped to invite the Spirit. After the movie, we talked about it a little. We read John 17:15-17, and I asked what it means to be in the world but not of the world. Some of the answers that were shared were that we have the commandments, and that we have a responsibility to set a good example for those around us. Someone ...

I'll be the very first person to tell you that I am not in very good shape. In spite of trying to do 20 minutes of pilates five days a week and walking to and from school every school day, I'm still not where I would like to be. Last week, there was another day when Peter was running late and we had to run to school, and my ankle hurt for the next four days. Somewhere in that time it occurred to me that my shoes might be contributing to the pain. In the past, I have tended to wear cheap shoes. When money has been tight, and the kids have been growing out of their shoes every six months, I don't want to spend a lot of money on myself, and so I go to Payless and pick up a cheap pair of shoes... which end up falling apart in six months. Last winter I wore my hiking boots - my one pair of expensive shoes - almost every day because they were sturdy enough not to fall apart, and they helped keep my feet warm when I was trudging through snow on the way to and from school. But th...

For my personal scripture study the last several months, I've been going through Preach My Gospel, looking up the scriptures, marking scripture chains, writing down what I've learned, and the connections I made. It has helped me to study the gospel topic by topic, and review the basic truths that the missionaries teach about each subject. This morning, the topic I was studying was tithing.(pp78-79) I read Doctrine and Covenants sections 119 and 120, about what the Lord requires as tithing, and who decides how the tithing funds are used. I read about how Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek. (Heb 7:1-2, Genesis 14:18-20, also Alma 13:15) I read about the blessings that are promised to those who pay their tithing. (Malachi 3:7-12) After the tithing scriptures, there were two more scriptures listed under the subheading of faith: 3 Nephi 13:33: (I add v. 31-32 to add a bit of context) Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewitha...

While I was at TOFW on Saturday, the rest of the family attended a ward picnic at Lake Loveland. I heard they had a lot of fun with plenty of food, a playground with a tire swing, and a couple of my kids played in the lake and buried themselves in sand. (I'm not sure what order they did that in...) Steven took pictures:

This morning, our Stake Adult Furthering Religious Education Class (aka Institute for Old People) resumed. I'm not going to write about everything we discussed today. I have other things to do today. There was one verse that particularly stood out to me. It was D&C 1:10. It says, "Unto the day when the Lord shall come to recompense unto every man according to his work, and measure to every man according to the measure which he has measured to his fellow man." When I read this, my mind first went to part of the Lord's prayer and commentary in Matthew 6:12,14-15. The Lord said, "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors... For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." We will be judged the same way that we judge the people around us. If we are critical and unforgiving, then the Lord will be critical and unforg...

On Friday, about the same time I would normally be heading out to pick up Peter from school, I climbed in the car and headed to a friend's house. There, we were joined by three other women and together we drove the forty minutes to Loveland, Colorado to attend Time Out For Women. We checked in to the Embassy Suites hotel where we had a room reservation, and then went to Red Robin for dinner. After dinner, we returned to the hotel, brought our luggage up to our 6th floor suite, and then returned downstairs to the conference room where the Time Out For Women was being held. The view from the balcony outside our suite. The tables below was where we ate our breakfast Saturday morning. Time Out For Women was awesome. That evening, surrounded by thousands of other women from Colorado and its neighboring states, we listened to music performed by Justin Cash and Callee Reed , and listened to presentations by Barbara Thompson and John Bytheway . We returned to our room around 10p...

Just as Tuesday night was the cub scout pack meeting, where the cub scouts received their awards, Wednesday night was a Court of Honor, where our boy scout, John, received the awards that he has been working on for the last couple years. He received nine merit badges: Environmental Science, Chemistry, Electricity, Inventing, Mammal Study, Nuclear Science, Programming, Radio, and Space Exploration. (Does anyone else notice a theme?) He also received his Tenderfoot, Second Class and First Class rank advancements. Congratulations, John!

Last night we went to Pack Meeting. This was our first pack meeting since our ward broke away from combined cub scouts with another ward, so we were still getting the hang of things, but I thought it went pretty well. We had a gathering activity, a word find with cub scout related words. The boys seemed to enjoy that. Peter offered the opening prayer and the boy scout troop did the flag ceremony. Then the boys were given an opportunity to share some of the things they've been learning. I was amazed at how much the current Webelos remembered about the activities we've done this past month! The two boys who were receiving their Bobcat got to act out a little skit, of going camping and leaving on a hike, and having a bobcat come and fall asleep in their tent (I was reminded of Goldilocks...) and coming back and wrestling with the bobcat and coming out of the tent with their bobcat badges. It was fun for those participating, and for the watchers. Other awards were passed ...

Last September, we got a free membership to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science through the boys' school. We realized a few weeks ago that it would expire soon, and that we had never used it. So, we scheduled a day to go to the museum, and wrote it on the calendar so we wouldn't forget. I'm so glad that we did it. Saturday morning, we got up and had breakfast, then loaded into the car and drove to the museum. We spent the next several hours exploring the exhibits and having fun. I did bring the camera, but I didn't take a lot of pictures... I was too busy exploring and looking at the many cool exhibits that were there! We started out in the space exploration wing, and got to see lots of stuff about stars and planets and telescopes, and water erosion (showing that there was probably liquid water on mars at some time). From there we were invited to go up to the roof to look through a solar telescope, which we did. The sun looked cool: a big orange circle with ...