MaeLyn's Musings

Hannah and I played a duet in Sacrament Meeting last Sunday - Hannah on the viola and I played the piano. The song was "I Need Thee Every Hour" and it was my own arrangement! I started working on it back in January or February, and Steven mentioned it to the sister in our ward who is in charge of scheduling musical numbers, and she scheduled it, so I had to finish it! I thought it turned out really well, and I wish we had recorded it, but we didn't. Maybe someday. In the mean time however... Here is a link to a midi file so you can get a rough idea of what it was kind of supposed to sound like. And if you really are interested, here are links to the piano sheet music  and the viola sheet music . Enjoy!

It was Easter afternoon. We had been to church. We had done the Easter Egg hunt. We were busy trying to get dinner ready because we had missionaries coming to eat with us and we were on a schedule. Josh had wandered outside to enjoy the beautiful day. I went out to stretch my legs and see what he was doing, and he pointed out to me the woodpecker high in a tree, carving out a home for himself, with its mate nearby, ready to take a turn. It wasn't long before my camera tripod was on the front walk, and two pairs of binoculars were out. After studying Steven's bird book, Josh determined that they were northern flickers because he noticed the red face markings. A couple smaller birds came by and checked out the cozy hole in the tree with an eye to move in, but they were soon chased away. The hole grows larger day by day. I think it will be fun to have more birds in our neighborhood.

Dying eggs used to be a fairly simple endeavor. We boiled a bunch of eggs, covered the table with several layers of newspaper, set out cups with hot water, vinegar and food coloring, and let the kids dip their eggs into the colored cups.  As the years go by, however, the tradition has evolved. For one thing, fewer of us desire to participate in the coloring of the eggs. Sadly, it is no longer a family activity. This year, only three of us participated.  Also, the eggs we end up with get more intricately decorated by those who do want to color them. No longer do we get solid colored eggs, dipped in just one color dye. Now the process involves markers, Q-tips, white crayons, and food coloring mixed with small amounts of lemon juice, as well as the usual cups of colored vinegar water for whole-egg dying. Now we get eggs with character! Vanellope von Schweetz, Stitch, Perry the Platypus Cogsworth, Buzz Lightyear Shrek, some random chick in an egg... Ar...

I wanted Hannah to write this blog... but she's a busy girl...and it is my blog. Hannah's Grandma Kathy called us back in late December or early January and asked if she could take Hannah on a trip to Paris during Spring Break. Kathy was working a lot of overtime around the holidays and had some extra money on hand, and she had gone on a trip around the world when she was in college and it had been a great experience for her, and Kathy wanted Hannah to have a similar international experience. She picked Paris because Hannah has studied French in school. We had a few concerns - everything from the possibility of terrorist attacks to their getting hopelessly lost in a foreign country, but in the end, we decided to let Hannah spend this special time with her grandma. Hannah got herself a passport, but other than that didn't seem to do a whole lot as far as preparing for the trip. She was busy with the musical at the time. Kathy, in her excitement, consulted with us as sh...

On Tuesday I returned to the cardiologist to find out the results of the tests I took a couple weeks ago. The doctor went through the results kind of fast, so while I caught the issues he mentioned, I don't know if one or another of them or a combination of all them is what has caused me to pass out... Or it could be something else entirely for all I know. The tilt table and exercise stress tests didn't reveal much since I didn't pass out, and my reactions were normal. They did determine that I don't need a pacemaker. The echo cardiogram discovered a few things: 1. I may have a bicuspid aortic valve . Most people's aortic valves have three flaps that open and close to control blood flow through the body. Mine may have only two flaps, which means that my heart is a little less efficient, and a small amount of blood gets sucked back in (or regurgitated) and has to be pumped out again. The doctor didn't seem very concerned about this, and so it's just so...

Last week was spring break. The kids were all out of school. Hannah went to Paris with her Grandma Kathy (more on that later). It was just me and the boys for the week. _____________________________________________________ A couple weeks ago, my sister April sent me a link to a video on a guy named Robert Lang who does origami for a living - really awesome origami. John has always had an interest in origami, so I showed him the video, and then we looked up some of the guy's books. Our library has a few of them, so a couple weeks ago we checked one out. Monday, Steven was flipping through the book and in the course of our discussion, the three of us realized that some of the paper sizes were rectangular, rather than square, and that I had a roll of butcher paper. The last project in the book - and possibly the most complicated, was a cuckoo clock that was to be made from a rectangle that was seven times as long as it was wide. John decided to make the cuckoo clock from...

The Addams Family Cast. Ancestors rise from their graves to assist the living. A young boy struggles with his sister's upcoming marriage. Two married couples work out difficulties in their relationships. A blindfolded girl shoots an arrow from a crossbow to pierce an apple atop her fiance's head. A lonely man straps rockets to his back to fly to his beloved moon. Hannah and John had the fantastic experience of being in Northglenn High School's Musical Production, The Addams Family. Performances were March 16, 17, and 18. Hannah was almost unrecognizable in short, curly hair performing as one of the ancestors, and was the only ancestor to change her costume during the show - changing from a 1950's poodle skirt to a wedding dress. Hannah was also the understudy for Wednesday Addams, and enjoyed learning her lines and filling in when the actress playing Wednesday was absent during rehearsals. John enthusiastically shaved his head in preparation for his role as ...