MaeLyn's Musings

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. We have a lot to be thankful for: After two weeks of frantically stripping, sanding, painting and repainting, I screwed on another batch of newly painted kitchen cabinet doors Thanksgiving morning. I just have the upper east side of my kitchen to go: four cupboards, seven doors. My new goal is to finish those by Christmas. I love having sisters living close enough to visit! Heather and her family returned to Colorado from Alabama, where they've been for the last six months, just in time to join us for Thanksgiving. April and her family also came up from Fort Carson to join us. We had thirteen people sitting around our tables for Thanksgiving, and I loved having them! (It's a good thing I'm not superstitious at all.) I'm also grateful that they didn't mind feasting mostly on side dishes while they waited for the turkey to finish cooking. Cousins gathered to watch Steven play a game on his cell phone.  I'm thankfu

My computer is sick. Very sick. I think it has caught a virus of some sort and it really isn't up to its normal speed. We have antivirus software (McAfee) installed on our computer, but it didn't catch whatever it was, and it still refuses to acknowledge that there is a problem. McAfee's realtime scanning keeps switching off for some reason, and then freezes when I turn it back on. The worst part is how slow the computer is. I log on and come back five minutes later to actually open a program. Five minutes later that program might be open. Anything related to the operating system is as slow as molasses in Alaska in January. I haven't been online much, just checking email quickly and getting off, before random tabs start opening up when I least expect it. I'm getting really behind in things that need to be done on the computer because it is such a pain to be on. Most of the time I've been on the computer in the last week has been spent trying to rid the computer

I don't like having my picture taken, but I took this one this morning. And then I photoshopped it to lighten the dark smudges around my eyes and get rid of the most annoying of the spots on my face. The point of the picture (I know you couldn't tell just by looking) is supposed to be my hair. You can see the ends of it resting on my shoulder. Steven cut several inches off it on Saturday so it went from almost down to my waist to just a few inches past my shoulder. While it has taken me a day to get used to it, I really like it. Thank you Steven!

Another Halloween has come and gone. I didn't spend much time or effort on costumes this year, but let the children choose what they wanted to be, and let them figure out their own costumes, helping as needed. While we didn't get a family picture, Steven took these pictures at our ward Trunk-or-Treat on Saturday night. Hannah chose to be a duck. At her request, I bought her a yellow shirt and a couple foam visors and made her yellow pants. She made her own wings and put it all together.(You can't see the yellow visor that formed her tail. It was really cute!) John wanted to be homework. I bought him a couple sheets of posterboard, which he wrote on so it looked like a sheet of homework. He had Hannah cut a bite shape out of it, and I attached it at the top with some pieces of yarn so it would hang from his shoulders. In hind site, I probably should have attached it at the sides somehow too. Oh well.    Joshua had his heart set on being a monkey, so we recycled a mon

A couple years ago, my mom told me about a book called " The Artist's Way ". It was supposed to help artists discover or recover their creativity. Curious, I looked it up at the library, and read it. It was interesting, and had a couple basic premises, one of which was to write "Morning Pages" or at least three pages, handwritten, every morning. They could be about anything and everything, but the point, as I remember it, was to get out the stuff that is milling around in the subconscious. It could be used to get out frustrations, to explore new ideas, or whatever. No one else was ever supposed to read them, they were totally private and personal. At the time I was intrigued by the idea, and tried to it. Within a couple of weeks, I stopped. Writing first thing in the morning wasn't happening for me. I couldn't sit down and write anything until the kids were at school, the house was under control, and I felt I had time to write. Another problem was that I

I was sick on Monday. My head ached, my stomach ached, I had no appetite, no energy, and spent the entire day on the couch not throwing up, but burping up smelliness. Steven was kind enough to drive the boys to school in the morning, so I only had to leave the couch to take Peter to kindergarten and pick up the kids after school. Hannah made dinner. I slept. Tuesday I was feeling a little better. My head still ached a little, and I was still feeling a bit weak, but I was well enough to get up, wash some laundry and straighten the house a little. I decided not to help out in Peter's class like I usually do on Tuesdays, and spent that quiet time resting rather than exposing twelve kindergartners to whatever bug I had. Yesterday, (Wednesday) I was straightening the house and trying to get caught up on neglected housework when I realized I had forgotten to go to a breakfast at the school  for John, who was selected "Physical Education Student of the Month" by his PE teach

A few days ago, John came home from school and told me he thought he had set a school record that day. Every day during his lunch recess, John runs around the track at his school. Five times around the track is one mile. Over the last couple years the number of laps he can run before the end of recess has been steadily increasing. On Wednesday, he ran a record breaking 8 laps! He told me he ran at a steady pace the whole time, and ran faster than he usually does. Wednesday afternoon I bought him some new shoes. His old ones were literally run to shreds. I wish I had taken a picture of them.

My last fish is dying. I wrote him a haiku: The last fish is sick Limp, it drifts, waiting for death. I'm like a vulture. I feel guilty, watching and waiting for him to finally die. I've enjoyed having fish. When we first got them, about six or seven years ago, I loved sitting and watching them swim around. It was relaxing. The first night we had fish, the molly started popping out babies and it was an adventure counting how many we had, when the number increased daily, and then decreased daily as the small fry were either eaten by bigger fish or caught in the filter. Only one of the babies survived to adulthood. Over the years we had many kinds of fish. Besides mollys, we had neon tetras, zebra danios, plecostumus, a shark, snails, and even a frog, as well as other types of tropical fish I don't remember the names of. But now it is the end of an era. About a year ago, when the four cats settled in and started stalking the tank, I stopped replacing fish

I'm sitting down relaxing for the first time today. And I have an hour before I need to be off and running again. I have so much that I need to do and I don't know where to start, or what I have time to start, or if I even want to get up and moving. It's kind of nice to just sit here. This morning I got the kids off to school, threw a load of laundry into the washer, cleaned out the kitty litter, straightened the house quickly, made sure Peter had a lunch and his backpack and I had my Primary things, transferred the laundry to the dryer and tossed another load into the washer, hopped into the car and dashed to my presidency meeting. After the presidency meeting I drove by the library to drop off a couple books, then took Peter to school, where he ate his lunch on a picnic table near the playground, and then went to class. From there I got gas and picked up some milk and bread, returned home to put away the groceries, pull the laundry out of the dryer (folding mine and Stev

Steven left early this morning to head back to camp. This is the second three day weekend of his Woodbadge scout training. The last several days he has been busy making preparations - everything from coming up with quick jokes and meaningful stories to share to writing "Owl Roost" with rope on a large board. He has been thinking about goals, and planning with other patrol members in order to create a scouting related board game. And this morning he left on his adventure. He'll be back Saturday evening with stories to share. Until then, we're on our own. Today being a single parent wasn't too bad, considering that he is usually gone at scouts on Thursday evenings anyway. I painted the ceiling in our hall today, and I think it looks pretty good. It's definitely better than the bare wallboard that has been exposed for the last month or so since we scraped off the popcorn. Unfortunately, when I took down one of the light fixtures something black fell on my head

Did you grow up with music in your family? Yes! Steven has told me that being around my family is like being in a musical; people have a tendency to break into song at the least provocation. We are a very musical family. My Mom plays piano. Both of my parents always sang in the ward choir at church, and my mom has conducted the choir at times. My mom taught me and most of my siblings how to play piano. Some of my favorite memories are of standing around the piano while my mom played, singing songs - especially the ones where we could split into parts. Frequently we would be working in the kitchen to clean up after a meal and someone would start, "I've been working on the railroad..." and before they got that far, everyone in the room would have joined in, some even making up their own harmonies. I loved it! My children sometimes wonder how I know so many songs, because I still like to sing while I work. Sometimes they are songs that they know, like the Railroad song,

Were you or do you remember anyone in your school class being punished by a teacher? The first time I remember being punished was in a very early grade when we read something about spitballs in a story book. The teacher asked if anyone knew what a spitball was, and I attempted to show her what I thought a spitball was. The teacher was not impressed or amused. I had to wash off the desk and sit with my head down on the desk for a while. I mostly remember the threats more than I remember actual punishments. In elementary school, we had a folder of our work that we brought home every week on Tuesday, and we had to bring it back the next day signed by a parent. It was called the "Tuesday Tattler". One of my teachers - and I honestly don't remember which one - told us that if we forgot to bring it back signed, he (or she) would hang us upside down by our toes from the flag pole! I remember wondering how one would go about doing that... but I never got to see it done. I ima

Josh posing as a scarecrow in the garden. Our gardening days have come to an end and the little garden plot has been laid to rest. For this year anyway. It has been fun. We didn't plant tomatoes this year, and instead enjoyed broccoli, carrots, peas, beans, onion and corn plants. The broccoli was a new experience. It grew, the flowers appeared, and we hacked off the stalk and ate it cooked with cheese melted on top. Good stuff. The peas and beans grew well and plentiful, and we enjoyed several meals with them both cooked and raw. The onion was one that started sprouting in the fridge, and was transplanted to the garden, where it proceeded to grow tall... I'm not sure how new onions are supposed to grow though. I imagine it is like other bulbs that should be planted in fall... but when do you harvest bulbs? I don't know. We enjoyed the plants, anyway. The corn was a plant that Josh brought home from school last Spring. It took a while to get going, but eventually the ear

Tell about what you did while visiting your grandparents or aunt and uncle. My Grandma and Grandpa McClellan lived in Hayward, California. My Grandpa owned a construction company, and much of the materials storage and management must have been based at his home because the long, downward sloping driveway led past the house, past an office, garages, woodpiles and tool sheds, on its way to a river that marked the end of the property. The huge area was a great place to play hide and seek. I have memories of looking for raspberries or blackberries to pick in the very back of the property, and pineapple guavas from a plant closer to the house. Inside the house, there were wonderful things to look at and see. I remember a statue of a knight in armor, a plethora of books, and lots of paintings and knickknacks that seemed fascinating to me. There was a collection of toys stored in small tables in the living room, including beads that could be strung together in long chains and a stereo pic

So I'm a slacker and let weeks go by without posting. I'm still here. Here is some of what we've been doing: In the process of fixing up our house, we completed step one: scraping the popcorn off the ceilings... and this included three bedrooms, a long hallway, the living room and dining room. Steven did most of the work (the master bedroom, the boys' room, the hallway, entry, the dining room, some of the living room), but Hannah and I both scraped her bedroom, and I did most of the living room.  Once all the ceilings were done, the fun part began - painting! We started painting the boys' room, which now sports a flat white ceiling and beautiful blue walls. I hung some curtains, and now the room looks nice and cozy. Boys room before the makeover: plain white walls, no curtains, blinds so ragged and broken we never used them. Boys room after the makeover: blue walls and curtains. Since I took the picture I hung pictures on the walls. I think it looks grea

Did you have a job as a child? My first jobs were babysitting jobs. I babysat at home for my parents frequently, and I was lucky to be paid for it. I think I was about eleven when I started babysitting for a family across the street. They had two children, and I would babysit the younger one while their mom took the older child to a piano lesson once a week. We mostly watched the Disney Channel on TV and drank chocolate milk for the hour or so that I was over there. As a teenager I had more babysitting jobs for various families, although nothing on a regular basis, and I usually found more for me and the children to do than just watch TV. I had a couple odd jobs for short periods of time, including watering a garden while a family was on vacation and tutoring a friend who needed some extra help in math. My first real job was at the beginning of my senior year in high school, for an after school day care program. That lasted for about two weeks. I think I was really nervous the fi

What form of transportation did you have while growing up? The earliest car I remember driving in was a brown station wagon, although I do vaguely recall an unused blue car (maybe a Chevy?) being parked in our driveway at some point in time in my early youth. I remember that the back seat of the station wagon faced backwards, and that I liked sitting there. The back seats in the car must have folded down, too, because I remember sleeping in the car the night before leaving on vacation, and it was all flat. Mom and Dad would get up early in the morning and we would be on the road before we kids ever really woke up. Of course, those were the days before laws requiring seat belts and car seats. Eventually our family grew to a size that required a van. I remember a couple of different blue vans in my teen years. We were a one car family for most of my childhood. Dad would ride his bike to work. My siblings and I would walk to school and back, and my mom had the car to do whatever erran

Time: Saturday evening, around 7pm. Place: Our neighborhood, a couple houses up the greenbelt. Exact location unknown. What: Peter encountered some bees. Actually, I think they were wasps or yellow jackets. One way or another, he came home that evening crying loudly that he'd been stung, and even brought a couple passengers into the house with him, clinging to his shirt. He complained loudest about the sting on his finger and one on his head by his ear, but he also sported sting marks on his wrist, arm, back and next to his eye. While they hurt a lot, they didn't seem to swell up much that night. The next morning, however, he was definitely swollen, making him look almost like he had a black eye at church. Peter thrived in the attention he received because of the eye. This morning, when the swelling in his eye and finger hadn't visibly decreased, I told him I needed to find something to give him to make the swelling go down. He replied, "No! I like my eye this w

Where did you live while growing up? House plan of the yellow house to the best of my memory. I was born in Goleta, California, in the United States of America. The first year or two of my life was spent living in a condo with my parents and older sister, before my family moved to a small yellow house in the same town. This is the first home I can really remember, and it was here that I spent my childhood. The driveway in front of the house curved around the lawn, ending in a garage door that was perpendicular to the street. The front of the garage was concealed by two tall trees (which I spent a fair amount of time climbing), as well as a few smaller bushes. I remember that the garage wall frequently hosted a family of snails. I remember that the driveway had a low spot next to the lawn, where a muddy puddle would form after a rain, which was perfect for floating small paper boats. The front door opened on a short entry hall. To the right was the kitchen, straight ahead was anoth

The kids have been in school for an entire week now! Wow! They seem to be enjoying school a lot, especially Peter, who continues to tell me ALL about his day. I love it! Our kitchen as it was when we moved in. While they've been in school, I've been working on a project here at home. A few years ago, we put our house on the market, in the hopes that we could sell it and move somewhere bigger. In preparation for that, I painted our dark brown cupboards yellow. As you might be aware, we didn't end up moving, we are still here, and the paint has begun peeling from the edges of the cupboard doors and drawers. As part of the process of fixing up our condo, I thought I would repaint them.   Our kitchen after painting the cupboards A drawer today Monday I removed the five lower cupboard doors, smeared them with paint stripper and began the long process of preparing them to be repainted. In the process, I discovered what went wrong the first time - I hadn't r

What did you do when you were a child that got you in the most trouble and how did your parents handle it? In trouble? Me? I was always a perfect angel! I never got in trouble! Okay... I do remember one time... It seems I had an imaginary friend as a little girl. Her name was Suzy I think. Anyway, at dinner one evening I was pretending to be her and not behaving quite as nicely as my usually angelic self. My frustrated parents would tell "MaeLyn" to behave and I would reply, "I'm not MaeLyn, I'm Suzy!" Finally, my frustrated parents showed me to the front door and told "Suzy" to go home and send "MaeLyn" back. I ended up sitting on the front porch, a very confused little girl. I realized, of course, that I really was "MaeLyn" however, it didn't occur to me that I could just walk back in the door, say "I'm MaeLyn" and that all would be fine. It was very clear in my mind that my parents had just kicked me out of

List a few of the simple things in life that make you smile and tell why. Okay. This may give away the insanity of how my mind works. These are a few of my favorite things: Frogs. I'm not sure why. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they are my favorite color, that they like water, and something about the shape of their heads make them look like they are smiling. Daffodils. I love the delicate shape of these bright and cheerful flowers. They kind of remind me of a cross between a tea cup on a saucer and a trumpet. Puffy white clouds against a blue blue sky. You know the kind of clouds I mean - the ones that are so easy to see pictures in. I like the contrast of stark white against blue. The crisp snap of a fresh vegetable breaking in half. It doesn't matter if it is a carrot, celery, or, as I enjoyed yesterday, a stalk of raw broccoli, but I find the sound to be very satisfying to some random part of my soul. Come to think of it, biting into a fresh, crisp apple o

What did your parents do for work while you were growing up? When I was growing up, my mother was a busy stay at home Mom, with several young children at home. I don't remember her ever working outside the home until I was married and gone. She was always busy with something or other, but I do remember coming home from school to see her folding laundry while watching "Little House on the Prairie" or "Highway to Heaven" on TV. From the time he graduated from college, my Dad worked as a computer programmer at a company called Burroughs, which merged with another company to become Unisys in 1986. He stayed with that company until he retired. As a result of the merger, our family moved to Mission Viejo CA, and I remember that one of the qualities they were looking for in buying a house there was that it be located within biking distance from Dad's new work. Dad almost always rode his bike to work and back. At home we enjoyed the benefits of Dad's being a co

Two days into the school year... so far so good. Hannah got her schedule with Honors classes yesterday, seems to know her way around and doesn't appear to have any worries about anything. She has decided to learn to play the viola in her orchestra class. Both John and Josh say they like their teachers. Other than that, they haven't offered much information about what they did at school, other than which Special (Music, Art or PE) they had. Peter is still loving kindergarten, and unlike my other kids, he actually tells me about what he did! Yesterday, he began with, "When we got to school the teacher showed us where to put our back packs..." he told me they played "mud tag" in PE, and the teacher read Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See to them, and then he started drawing a picture about the story, but he didn't finish so he'll need to finish it tomorrow. I'm glad he is enjoying it and I hope his enthusiasm lasts throughout the school year. M

It's official. My baby is in kindergarten, my oldest is in Middle School. All my children are in school, or were, for about fifteen minutes today. I wasn't able to see Hannah off. She took off walking, headed for the bus stop at the same time I started loading the boys into the car to head to school. I didn't follow the bus to her school. I didn't take pictures in front of the school. I didn't even take pictures of her getting on a school bus for the first time (that wasn't a field trip). I hope she is enjoying her day. Last night we went to the open house at the middle school, and talked to someone about getting her into honors classes. Apparently her 5th grade teacher hadn't passed on the forms to get her in, but after the lady looked up her CSAP scores, she admitted that there was no question Hannah should be in honors. She took care of it, and Hannah's schedule should be changed either today or tomorrow. She was able to meet most of her teachers and

"Tell about an experience with one of your children's teachers." Hannah turned five one day after the cut off date to get into kindergarten that year. No matter how ready she was, the school would not bend the rules in the slightest to let her in. Not having the means to put her in preschool, I kept her home that year, but got her kindergarten work books to work on. At home, Hannah learned her ABCs and was soon putting letters together into words and sentences. A year later, she was allowed into kindergarten, just before she turned six. During the first week of school, she wrote a story, and her kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Wilson, was very impressed by it. She showed Hannah's story to the principal, and then to the district people and finally managed to do what I hadn't been able to do on my own - get Hannah moved up to first grade, where she would have been if she had been allowed to start kindergarten the year before. I will always feel grateful to Mrs Wilson for

Last night I went to a Relief Society meeting where we learned about journals, family history, photography, and scrap booking. One of the sisters who taught mentioned that we need to find a method of recording life's events that works for us, and that a person can still get into heaven even if she doesn't scrapbook. What a relief! I have made a few scrap books - one for my high school years (as a young womens project), one for my college years, and one for my mission. (I put these together in the month or two after I came home from my mission, before I started working - when I didn't have much else to do.) I have put together about 20 pages since I got married, but that's it. For years my "scrap book" was my web site, but even that has been pushed to the side in recent years. As for journal writing, I have been a sporadic journal writer at best. I guess now the closest thing I have to a journal is this blog. And you can see how often I write here - not daily b

Yesterday we went to an orientation at the middle school. I still find it difficult to believe that Hannah will be in middle school, and now it is less than a week away. Wow. I was grateful that they had a parent meeting, while the 6th graders were learning the same things and getting their tour of the school and trying out their lockers. I like that the school has a website where we can see what homework has been assigned (not that I'm worried about Hannah completing her homework, but it's nice to have a way to see when she should be studying or completing a project.) I like that we will be able to check on her grades any time online, and so won't be surprised when report cards come home. I like how the 6th graders get a six week introduction to each of the electives the school offers so they can make informed decisions when selecting their 7th and 8th grade electives. I am a little concerned that Hannah isn't currently registered for honors classes, even though we fil

It's Saturday. Some time today, Steven should return home from the Scout canoe trip he's been on since early Monday morning. I haven't heard a thing from or about him, so I assume that he's okay. I hope he's having fun. This week has passed kind of quickly actually. We've kept busy for the most part doing something or other and nothing too disastrous has happened. On Monday we went visiting teaching, to the park and swimming. On Tuesday we borrowed some movies and had a movie day at home. On Wednesday I had two visiting teaching appointments, then we went to the park and that night John had scouts. On Thursday we took Abish to the vet, and later we went to the library and then swimming. Yesterday (Friday) was spent shopping. We made our menu plan for August, from that we made up a shopping list, then we went to Sam's Club, came home and unloaded, then went to Walmart to complete the shopping as well as pick up school supplies for the coming school year. With

Yesterday was John's birthday. He turned 9. Before church (We have church at 1pm so we had plenty of time) I baked his cake and then covered it with a towel to cool while we were at church. (I once left a cake uncovered to cool... only to have a cat lick a bare spot on it! ) Church went as normal. I taught sharing time in Primary, and during our closing exercises we got to sing a birthday song to John. We returned home to decorate the cake, pop a pizza in the oven (purchased the day before at Sam's Club) and eat dinner. decorating the cake After dinner, John opened his presents, including several packs of origami paper, a deck of cards, a couple books, homemade "Pretty Pink Pony" wrapping paper (compliments of Hannah), a tackle box and lock (for protecting his stuff from his little brothers) and a bat and balls. Later we sang Happy Birthday and ate our snowman cake and ice cream. John blew out his candles in two blows... the first one didn't count though, because

Over the last few days I added a page to my website just for my kids. There aren't any links to it from anywhere else on the site yet, but my kids have all made it their homepage. I thought I'd share. http://stevenmaelyn.com/kidlinks.html It has links to sites my children enjoy going to online, as well as a few other sites they could check out. Most of them have some educational benefits. They include sites for Hannah and John (like a scigames.com that has games about solar systems and stuff) as well as sites with activities Peter can do. (like PBSkids.org) There is a link to the Friend activity page as well as a MAD LIBS Widget that they can do right on the page. I plan to add sites to it as I find ones I think my children will like. So, I was wondering if any of those who read this know of any fun, age appropriate sites I could add to it. Yes, I've tried Google, but there are so many options there, it's going to take me a while to find the good ones. I'd like to k

Yesterday, looking for something to do, we pulled out the modeling clay and started sculpting. Hannah, always the artist, created an entire family! I was very impressed. This is the entire family. These are the parents. These are the children. Notice the girl licking an ice cream cone and the baby with the rattle! What a talented daughter I've got!

I was cleaning out a file cabinet and came across this old geometry quiz. The kids and I had fun figuring out the answers. The answers are below, but try to figure them out before you peek! No actual knowledge of geometry is required. (Warning: these require some imagination and disregard for spelling, grammar, and the like.) Match the correct term to its description: 1. That which Noah built. 2. An Article for serving ice cream 3. What a bloodhound does in chasing a woman 4. An expression to represent the loss of a parrot 5. An appropriate title for a knight named Koll 6. A sunburned man 7. A tall coffee pot perking 8. What one does when it rains 9. A small dog sitting in a refrigerator 10. What a boy does on the lake when his boat's motor won't run 11. What you call a person who writes for a hotel 12. What the captain said when his boat was bombed 13. What a little acorn says when he grows up 14. What one does to trees that are in the way 15. What you do if you have yarn an

I am NOT HAPPY!!! I went to take a picture today and discovered that someone broke my camera!!! It looks like someone hit the LCD screen on the back with something sharp and hard. When I turn on the camera, it looks cracked in the middle with black streaks radiating out from the center. I can still turn it on and I can still take pictures, and download them to the computer, but I can't see what I'm taking a picture of (there's no view window), and I can't see what I'm doing to change any of the menu options. Grrrr! We didn't need another big expense. (We already replaced the fridge and dishwasher this year!) We'll probably have to live with it for now... but can I repeat? I am NOT HAPPY!!!!!

I'm way overdue for an update, but it's been hard to find the time this summer. The week after our South Dakota Adventure was busy. John had Cub Scout Day Camp that week. I was busy unpacking, cleaning, doing laundry, enjoying Kristy and Family's visit, and on Friday of that week I got to leave the other three kids with a friend while I went to help out with the day camp. That was fun. Since it was the last day, the boys got to shoot off rockets that they had made earlier in the week. They pounded stamps into leather, learned about putting up and taking down tents, learned how to play some volley ball, and played dodge ball. The challenge was keeping track of the boys' water bottles and making sure they were all drinking enough in the hot sun. John and I ended up leaving a little early, and I'm glad we did: at the time that they were supposed to let out, a summer storm had arrived and it was pouring rain and hailing! The following week we were finally able to settle