MaeLyn's Musings

As Peter and I huddled under my big blue and white umbrella on our way through the pouring rain to school this morning, a long suppressed memory surfaced in my mind. Thirty years or so ago, when I was a little girl growing up in Goleta, California, it seemed like when it rained, it really poured. I remembered my mom dropping my older sister and me off at school on rainy days. (Most days, we walked to school.) We rushed through the crowded parking lot, dodging cars, people, and raindrops as we hurried to the entrance to the multipurpose room (Cafeteria/ Gym/ Auditorium) where we were to wait until school would begin. The multipurpose room was always crowded and humid. The hard floor would be wet, slippery and often muddy. The room would be packed with hundreds of children of all ages clustered together, talking and laughing, playing games, sometimes throwing balls or paper airplanes. It was incredibly loud and chaotic. With so many people, the room soon became sweltering hot and...

We've received a phone call or two from family who was concerned about us in light of the flooding here in our area. We are fine. As I mentioned a few days ago, the lawn in front of the house gets covered with water occasionally when it is raining hard, but it usually doesn't take long to drain again once the rain eases up. So far, the water hasn't risen any where near high enough to reach our front door, or even to flood the play room, which is a couple steps down from the rest of the house. We haven't chanced to be driving on any of the roads that have been washed out. Steven got stuck in traffic one morning on his way to work when a freeway off ramp was flooded and cars were turning around to get back on the freeway via the off ramp. That's about as exciting as it gets for us, for which I am grateful. Yesterday, we received a couple phone calls about 1/2 hour before church was to start to let us know that a major intersection on the way to church was flooded. W...

This week has been the rainiest I've seen in a long time. Sure, we frequently get the late summer evening thunderstorms, but it has been raining most of the day, every day, for the last three days. Since we only have one car, I get to walk to take the kids to school and to pick them up afterwards. Luckily for us, only on Monday afternoon was it really pouring down on us while we were walking. Other days the rain has stopped for a little while, or it has just been a light sprinkle. I like rain, when I don't have to be out in it. It is the perfect weather to curl up in a comfy chair with a good book, and since I am still wading through the Wheel of Time series, I have plenty to read. (I'm on book eleven now.) At night, the sound of rain pounding on the roof is strangely relaxing, and it lulls me to sleep. The grass looks greener now than it has all summer, and I haven't had to water my garden. I kind of wonder if the plants will drown from all the water they are ...