Maryann's Musings

   Over the last decade or so, our family has watched a lot of Christmas movies. We know the classics and the ones certain family members can watch without feeling sick. This year, I decided to take it a step further. Here is a compilation of our ultimate Christmas movie wish-list; it gets to be our watch-list! Some of these movies we have seen dozens of times. Others were recommended to us. (You'll also notice we have a thing for the Muppets).    I patterned the list to capitalize on variety. We have our 'Funny Friday' with the Santa Clause movies, and our 'Serious Sundays' with more meaningful movies, usually Christmas Carol themed.         We are especially excited to watch the new Grinch release because of Benedict Cumberbatch. Fridays in our house are Sherlock Fridays and we left off on a cliff hanger! You would not believe the patience this is going to take.  For all you How It Should Have Ended  and...

  I last posted in May. I didn't realize this until I looked on my blog page today. In July I was very active, but even when I did have free moments, I avoided my blog using inspiration as an excuse. I am a firm believer in never rushing a written work and always working off of an inspiration. But, for me, it can be very easy to fall into the rut of procrastination using that philosophy of inspiration as an excuse.  In truth, there has been much to be inspired by around me if I had only sat down for an hour or so to wring it out of my brain. School has (surprisingly) instilled a work ethic in me that I am (hopefully) going to hold to.  After a little coaxing and some sacrifice on my part, my little brother Aidan and our friend Jackson agreed to work together and every other day give me a topic that I will have to blog about. I made them promise that it would not be gross, disgusting, or weird.  I hope that this will push me out of my comfort zone in both wri...

  Life is busy, and sometimes I don't always have time to write blog posts because nothing extremely interesting is happening. I have been having a great year so far and have great expectations for everything that we are going to do as a family. Here are some little pieces of news from our household:    Our rabbits are healthy and thriving (not to mention grossly obese). We have eight bunnies at the moment: S'mores - the 'alpha male' of the pack, a sourpuss and softie at the core; Honey-Bunny - the mommy, a very sweet thing; Gorgon, Destroyer of Carrots  (Jackson's rabbit, can't you tell?) - Gorgon is the big brother, and he is the only one who is fit and agile; Root Beer, Cinnabunn, Coconut, and Ghirardelli (like the chocolate brand) are the quadruplet babies who are all in their adolescent slump and moodiness stage. Finally, there is Cappuccino, who was a gift from another family and is to some extent an outcast among the bunny family.  We recently ...

 Hey everyone; due to unfortunate circumstances I was unable to post a second blog about Koko's Trip to Kenya, but I will be posting pictures of our trip sometime this or next week on Google+ (technology being the roadblock). We will be going to the beach soon, and if I can remember to take my camera, there will be a blog about that. Thanks for your understanding! Have a great weekend.  😊

   In the American culture, having a business or a salon come to your home is expensive; here in West Africa, people will come to your door selling things, give you manicures and pedicures, or stop by wondering if you need some baguettes or fruit. The reason is: infrastructure.  Instead of having to pay for utilities and maintenance on a building, they can just show up at their next client's house. Word of mouth is the best form of advertisement.  Today, someone came to pierce Christianna's ears!    A few weeks ago Christianna fell and hit her head. In the Emergency Room (SHE'S FINE by the way) the nurse who worked with trauma cases took one look at Christianna and thought she was an American boy; not only was her hair cropped short, her ears weren't pierced.    When a baby girl is born into an African family, her ears are pierced immediately. It's a big deal. For years Christianna has been mistaken for a young boy because her ears we...

  This blog is from a girl MK's point of view. Today's post is straight from the mouths of a bunch of guys. Their views of their camping trip up in the mountains with their bikes. I have * ahem*   highly edited  some of their stories and added notes, but this, as I said, is straight from them (and they agreed to the edits).  Some of you may find this boring, but I don't. It shows how their perspective is so much different from mine. And they are really funny.  (But getting them to sit still for the entire time was HARD. It took a lot of breaks...) AIDAN : "After going straight to Club Hippique, we drove up to Arnaud (he was reading a book) and Tristan opened the window and shouted at him. ( Editor's Note: M. Arnaud, our equestrian instructor, had invited the boys to go to a hotel up in the mountains where they could bike).  After two hours, we saw the first mountain come into view; then in another hour we saw our mountain and after driving up ...

  With water swishing in the buckets on our heads and dripping down our arms, Tristan and I walked unsteadily down the rocky, dirt road leading to our backyard. Kicking the gate open, we trudged up to our 'reservoir' (a burnt-mustard, fifty-gallon plastic container).  Then we slowly poured our prize inside. Why? Because right now we don't have running water! Our routine has looked really funny the past few days: the water kicks on for literally five minutes and everyone runs around like maniacs filling empty buckets and washing their hair. So trust me, we all stink . This is how we take baths right now....  Doing the dishes and washing our hands is hard enough, but doing laundry is especially difficult. We have to manually pour water into the machine until it works. Drinking water is pretty much taken care of. We have a big bucket next to our sink filled with clean water. If needed, we just buy bottled-water or boil tap water for 6 minutes, although this is our l...

  As some of you may know, I babysit for an amazing family. That family recently had a 'business' trip up to the slightly mountainous region of the country I live in.  I would 'nanny' the kids while the adults took care of their work, then they would come and have fun with us. Great, right? Yes! One of my charges My other charge  The drive up was pretty enjoyable, and we listened to lots of music before we arrived. They even found me a theme song that included my name: 'More Than a Feeling' :)  This video is of an encroaching village, with one of the mountains in view.  When we finally arrived, we were stopped at this gate and then escorted to the Guest House. The Guest House   Everyone made us feel so welcome there! I have no complaint other than the bugs and the heat, but no one there was responsible for that :)  Once we got settled in, I was taken to my dorm-like room to meet one of my roommates. ...