MaeLyn's Musings

Last night, I attended my first high school football game. (That I can remember. I may have been to one before, but I can't remember it if I did.) I haven't even watched football since I was in college and my college was playing - but then I watched it on TV, not in the stadium. I'm not generally a sports fan. But last night's game kept me entertained. She wanted her jersey to say "Hanana Bread" but they got it wrong. When Hannah told me last month that she wanted to play powder puff football, my first response was probably, "Really? Whatever for?" And then when I signed the permission forms that mentioned that there was a risk of serious injury, and possibly even death, I wondered why on earth I was letting her play! But I signed them anyway, grateful that we at least have health insurance. Practices began, and kept her busy after school almost every day. I'm not sure how she juggled football practice with play practices, but somehow...

I mentioned a couple days ago (if you watched my video from Monday) that I performed my Joseph Medley in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday. This is a medley that I have been working on - off and on - for a few years. It is a mashup of a bunch of songs relating to Joseph Smith. I had been working on it over the last few weeks, and finally felt like it was just about finished when I received an email from our ward music chairperson asking if I would perform a piano solo for Sacrament Meeting in a little over a week. This was the only thing that I felt I was close enough to being able to play well enough to perform with only a week's notice. I kept tweaking it over the next several days. (I think I printed out my final version on Friday!) But, with lots of practice, playing it several times a day (as you can see from the video) it turned out pretty well. I was happy with it, anyway. Just in case you are interested, the .pdf of the sheet music is here . I also attempted to produce a midi...

Monday evening, our family trekked outside with a watermelon and some rubber bands for a wholesome recreational activity, and to see if what Steven said was true: If you wrap enough rubber bands around a watermelon, it will explode. 7:00 pm   7:06 pm   7:17 pm   7:36 pm   7:44 pm   7:55pm   7:57pm   8:00:23 pm   8:00:27 pm Note: Do NOT try this indoors!!!!!

A few months ago, a couple of my sisters began a facebook group to help us be motivated to be more creative. The idea was that each month they would post a new challenge, and then we were invited to participate in that challenge. I usually have enough creative stuff going on (between knitting, crocheting, jewelry making, sketching, Photoshopping, sewing, etc.) that I didn't feel like I really needed a challenge to be creative, but I joined anyway. The most recent challenge is called "Crazy Days" and the challenge was: " Show us what you've been working on now that school is in session again!! We've all been crazy busy, I know, so share with us a glimpse of your craziness!!"  The challenge was posted on Monday, September 12th. I read the challenge, and then thought, Yes, I agree that life seems crazy... but what makes it so crazy? What is it that I do each day that makes it seem that way? All my kids are in school, so it's not like I'm cha...

This year, Josh gets to be in band. After a couple weeks of trying out different instruments, he selected the french horn as the instrument he wanted to play. Already he has learned to play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Hot Cross Buns" and a few other songs. He was interested to learn that the french horn is actually from Germany, rather than France. Although it is a bit heavy, he enjoys bringing it home to practice (to the annoyance of a couple of his siblings. It is a little loud.)

When the school year began a couple weeks ago, John took a pretest in his math class. He scored over 80% on it. At back-to-school night, John's math teacher told me about this, and I asked what he planned to do to keep John challenged during the year. The teacher kind of glanced around his classroom, then shrugged and said they didn't have anything set up for that. I encouraged him to figure something out so John would continue to learn and grow in math this year. So the math teacher gave John the class final. He passed that as well, again with over 80%. After consulting with John's math teacher from last year and his school counselor, they decided to bump him up to the next math class level. So they tweaked his schedule last week and John is now in Ms. Petrakis' 6th hour calculus class. Good news! Right? The thing is, Hannah also happens to be in Ms Petrakis' 6th hour calculus class. Not being one who really enjoys math, she took statistics last year instead of c...

Friday evening we piled into the car with our camping gear and set off on a family camp out, probably the last one for the season. We drove north west, to Estes Park , and camped at the East Portal Campground .  We set up tents and got dinner cooking in the dutch oven. We didn't bring charcoal, so had to cook it using chunks from our campfire, but the stew still turned out great.  Hannah chose to sleep on the picnic table. The next morning, Steven woke up early and got our mountain man breakfast cooking in the dutch oven. Once again, it turned out perfect!  When we were finished with breakfast, we cleaned up camp and got ready to go. While Steven packed the gear into the van, the kids and I went over to the playground.  The remainder of the morning was spent on a five mile hike. We hiked 2.5 miles from just outside the East Portal Campground to Sprague Lake , and then 2.5 miles back. The first half mile was the w...