MaeLyn's Musings

Yesterday I said if I ran the zoo, yesterday would have been a snow day. I guess a lot of other people had similar thoughts, and so a little after noon, the school district came out with an explanation... We’ve received inquiries about why a 2-hour delay or snow closure was not called today. Our process calls for announcing a delayed start or closure by 5:30 a.m. At that time, weather reports were still indicating we would receive an inch or two of snow through midday, and temperatures and wind would not be a significant concern. As you know, the storm ended up delivering much more snow in a shorter amount of time than forecasted for our area, making for challenging road conditions. Despite our best efforts, sometimes our decisions do not play out how we would like. We regret that this unexpected change in weather conditions led to a challenging commute for many families and our bus transportation team. Parents always have the right and the responsibility to do what is best for th...

If I ran the zoo, today would so totally have been a snow day. No school, everyone gets to stay home and build snowmen and drink hot chocolate. If I ran the zoo. But I don't. And there was school today. The forecast called for some snow, maybe 1-3 inches. Not a big deal, right? We woke this morning to snow that still had tips of grass poking out of it. This happens often enough. We sent the boys off to seminary as usual. The boys generally pick me up on their way from seminary to school between 6:55 and 7am. I went out around 6:55 to watch for them, and realized that the snow was coming down thick and fast. It wasn't until a few minutes after 7 that the van finally pulled up. As I hurried to get into the car, John hopped out with the snow brush to try to clear off the windshield. He said the wipers weren't working very well; they were just smearing. I suggested turning on the defroster to melt the ice that had accumulated on the wipers, and that helped a lot. I wondered...

Just an hour ago, the sidewalks were barely wet, and you could only tell it was snowing from the occasional wispy flake coming down. Now look at it! Sorry about the poor quality photo... I took it with my phone. Peter and I trudged through snow at least an inch deep to get him to school. The wind tore at my umbrella trying to lift me like in a scene from Mary Poppins. I didn't bother taking my long walk this morning, and my finger tips were still frozen by the time I got back home.

This morning, I saw Peter wandering around wearing only one shoe, and instantly I began quoting "Diddle diddle dumpling my son [Peter]..." That led to other nursery rhymes, and as Peter and I were walking to school this morning he commented, "That reminds me of that one YouTube video I watched." "That one video you watched?" I blinked at him. "How many YouTube videos have you watched in your life?" I asked him. He rolled his eyes at me. "I mean that one video that talked about the origins of the nursery rhymes. Like, did you know that Humpty Dumpty wasn't really an egg?" "He wasn't?" "No. It was a cannon in a war somewhere." Interesting. Of course I knew that nursery rhymes supposedly refer to events in the past. Like Ring Around the Rosies refers to the black plague. But what do the other nursery rhymes refer to? So when I got home, I did a bit of research. What does Wikipedia have to say about the origins o...

It began Monday morning. Spray painted lines appeared on the sidewalk and grass and even on the snow. There were little flags, too, in different colors - red, orange, green. Later that afternoon a couple signs appeared in one place where the trail crosses the creek: Warning, sewage leak. Keep out. Was someone digging and broke a sewage line? On Wednesday, wooden stakes appeared here and there, along the trail, along the creek. This morning, men in orange vests were busying themselves among the reeds in one area of the creek, maybe a hundred yards downstream from where the supposed sewage leak was announced. Other men in bright vests were winding rope from metal pole to metal pole, effectively fencing off one side of the trail. There were also large construction vehicles and a "concrete works" truck parked on the wild grass on the side of the trail. My normal peaceful morning walk, communing with nature as I watch the birds and squirrels was not as peaceful as it nor...

Snippets of lace sift from the sky, Settling silently into woolly stillness Flawed only by the footsteps of the brave. Sparkling suds covers the ground: Like a dish washing accident going awry, Squishing and sloshing and turning to mud. Streams and rivers coursing down hill, Changing white to transparent like magical bleach, Freezing at night into slick icy slides.

I have a child who does not like to read. He never has. I don't know if I just didn't read to him enough as a child or if it was something he was born with, but he doesn't enjoy reading. He can read. He completes his assignments for school. But he chooses not to. And that is his choice. But I can't help but think of all the wondrous worlds that he is missing out on. But he doesn't see it that way. Harry Potter? He saw the movies - the first few anyway. The Ranger's Apprentice? Boring. Fablehaven ? Nah. Artemis Fowl ? Nope. Lord of the Rings ? Are you serious? A  Series of   Unfortunate Events ? You read that to me years ago.. Been there, done that. Maybe I'm too ambitious. James and the Giant Peach ? The Phantom Tollbooth ? The Indian in the Cupboard ? No, no, and no. To be fair, he has read Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books - the first series anyway. And he will read Captain Underpants books and comic books. Yay. We were discussing this a little...

Once upon a time, a mother received a phone call from her teenage son who was at school. An incident had occurred involving the son, and the boy's teacher felt that she needed to know about it. While talking with her son, the mother's first reaction was embarrassment, as though she were the one guilty because her son had done this. After talking with her son for a few minutes, it soon became evident that he was also embarrassed, and that it had been an accident, albeit one that could have been prevented with a few simple precautions.  Rather than yelling or making a big deal about it, she calmly discussed with her son what needed to be done to remedy the situation, and whether or not it was ever likely to happen again, and both mother and son went on with their day. Later, the mother wondered why she had felt embarrassed. Why had she felt guilty? Had she taught her son about this? Yes. Had the son known better? Yes. Was there anything at all that she could have done more t...

Do you ever find yourself imagining that you are trying to explain some modern invention to someone from like 500 years ago? This morning, the conversation in my head went something like this: What on earth is that? What? That! Up in the sky! Oh. That's an airplane. An... air... plane? Yes. It's a big machine that transports people long distances. There are people in there? Yes. How many people? Some airplanes only carry a few people. That one probably carries four or five hundred. *shudder* Why ever would a person want to get on an big machine in the sky? Well, sometimes we want to go places that are far away more quickly than it would take us to travel there by land or sea. For instance, if I wanted to go to my parents house, it would take me 8 hours to drive there, but only an hour or two to fly there, not counting the time sitting around in the airport. What is an airport? That's the place where the airplanes land and take off. It is where p...

Before Hannah left on her mission, we had a little family photo shoot. It was after Stake Conference on the church lawn, and we did our own photography, except for the family photos... which we asked random people passing by to take for us with varying results. In other words, these are not professional by any means. But it was fun! And yes, we got one good serious family picture.

I don't have any pictures from Thanksgiving... I didn't realize we even brought the camera until a couple days after we got home and Kristy sent a picture of it wondering if we had left it behind. I guess we did bring it and one of the boys brought it into the house with the other stuff, and then set it on a shelf in the room Steven and I were staying in... which also happened to be the room where they keep a lot of photography equipment, and so we saw it but thought it was theirs. Thankfully Kristy was willing to mail it to us before Christmas! Anyway, here are a few photos from Christmas that might be fun to share:  Peter's favorite random comment nowadays is "cats". One of his YM leaders gave him a pair of space cat socks for Christmas, and Peter was absolutely delighted. I think he wore them every day for the next week!😧 My sister Heidi has an awesome YouTube channel, and one of the videos she posted was of these adorable Rice Crispy Christmas ...

I like to walk. A couple years ago, I got a Fitbit Flex, which enabled me to track how much I walk in a day, and that encouraged me to do more walking. Now, I'm not crazy or anything - the most steps I ever got in a day was maybe 25,000 - and that was once when we were on vacation and going on hikes and sight seeing. My goal now is about 11,000 steps per day, which is enough that I need to push myself a little, but it isn't difficult to achieve on a normal day. I can hit it five or six days in a week (I don't try on Sundays). I usually take a two mile walk in the morning, accompanying Peter to school and then continuing for a while. Yesterday morning, I had walked about 1 1/2 miles when my left ankle suddenly hurt like anything to have any weight on it at all. I limped along the best I could, trying different ways of walking to see which produced the least amount of pain and wishing desperately that I had crutches. I was on a trail, with no road in sight so there was no...

This morning I came across a video on Facebook about why Millennials are messed up. Later I realized I'm not sure what "generation" I'm part of... Probably Gen X or Y, and I'm sure I learned it once, but it wasn't important enough to me to remember, and I don't care enough to look it up now. My point is that the generation that I was born into - my age group - is not something that I identify with. It is not part of my identity, or a group that I usually think of myself as a part of. So, then I started wondering, what groups do I identify with? First, I am part of a family, both my immediate family - husband and kids, as well as my birth family - parents and siblings. I also identify somewhat with my "clan", my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and even great grandparents and other ancestors.  I am a descendant of some pretty cool people, and I am glad I have that claim on them. It is always cool to find out I'm related to someone, e...

Happy new year! It is 2019, and I haven't blogged in over a month... what can I say? What has been happening in our lives? Well, here are excerpts taken from my letters to Hannah... November 9th : The house is very quiet during the day without you. I decided I wanted to paint your room before John moves in. We've decided on "fiesta blue", with navy blue drapes. I think it will look nice once we're done. Josh is eager to do some more painting, and I'm thinking we'll do it this weekend. John will be happy the sooner we're done; he slept on the floor in your room last night. Speaking of John, he still hasn't found his drivers license, so I've had to drive him to seminary every day this week (besides Wednesday...) He's going to search the drama area today hopefully - I'm wondering if it dropped out of his pocket when he was changing into his costume for the play Friday night. I hope we find it and don't have to pay to get a replaceme...

Every year since Steven and I were married in 1998, we have made a calendar. The first one was of just Steven and me, and I gave it to Steven as a Christmas gift. The following year featured pictures of newborn Hannah, and I think this is when we started sending copies of the calendar to the proud grandparents. And it became a tradition. Twenty years later, we are still making calendars. Some calendars have been relatively simple, while others have been more elaborate. Some calendars have been almost straight photos while others relied heavily on Photoshop. While it may have started as my project, the rest of the family has joined in and now I can honestly say it is a collaboration of the entire family (some more enthusiastically at times than others...) Some of the  themes have included: Media art (2004, with books, CDs, TV shows and commercials, etc), Criminals on the run (2005), Nursery rhymes (2006), A hunt for missing cats (2010), A pirate adventure (2012), Hogwarts (2014...