My mommy. She has backed me up with giving Daniel his meds in the morning which is becoming a trial because he has caught on to the fact that the capsule of Adderall is in the spoonful of peanut butter. She also watched Mr. Ornery this morning so I could go deal with Social Security.
Two
Rain. We got an inch of it yesterday. I am positively giddy.
Three
This hymn. I love Michael Card and I love The Ash Grove so I definitely love his version of “Let All Things Now Living”.
Four
Van Morrison and the Chieftains. Totally sharing these for my favorite Tasoni. 🙂 This is how I hear these particular songs in my head.
NaNoWriMo As usual, I decided to participate at the last minute and I think it will make for an interesting month. I’m doing it for fun this year to process some things in my life. (For those not familiar with it, go check out the NaNoWriMo website.)
Go love up Jenna and thank her for being the hostess with the mostest for the last year or so.
Srsly?!?!?!?! San Jose Unified sprung a new requirement on me: a TB test for Daniel. Apparently, they (not every other school district) require it of kids transferring from outside the district. I get it (sort of) but it seriously would have been nice to know that BEFORE TUESDAY. We found a CVS Minute Clinic and got it done this week but it knocked off our ability to enroll Daniel by a few days.
Prayer Request. I have an enrollment appointment with the district tomorrow morning at 8. Could y’all please pray that they’re happy with all my documentation (especially since Daniel’s withdrawal form may not be what they want)? He has to be enrolled before they will even look at his IEP and determine placement. I’m also praying that wherever he gets assigned has an autism program because a special day class (SDC) doesn’t guarantee that the teacher has any experience with autism.
WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!? Here’s the video and commentary on the young African-American woman who was thrown to the ground and handcuffed in South Carolina. She had just been orphaned and was acting out by refusing to put her cell phone away or let the teacher confiscate it. Still, that was no excuse to have the police called, be thrown in her desk to the floor, and then be dragged across the room with her desk to be handcuffed. Seriously, I question the humanity of anyone who can justify all of that!
Seriously looking forward to this! I’ve known Maria through various channels for a couple years now and am *seriously* looking forward to her book on saints. I encourage you to check it out.
Fighting the fearmongerers. There is a new book called The Fear Babe: Shattering Vani Hari’s Glass House that takes down the Food Babe. Given that I’ve seen only a handful of Hari’s schlock and she makes me stabby, I’m seriously looking forward to reading this.
Why I don’t watch daytime TV. My mom told me today that there are some anti-vax groups that are taking out ads on daytime TV to spread their deceit.
…
Because, you know, none of the people in these groups actually *REMEMBER* a world with measles outbreaks or serious widespread fear of polio because… THEIR PARENTS VACCINATED THEM!!!!! Why the fur would anyone *willingly* choose to subject your kids to these diseases?!?!?!?!?!?
Before I get into my “faves” for the week, I wanted to announce that Daniel and I just moved in with my parents in northern California. Don’t worry — Jon and I are not divorcing. At the present time, my parents can give me better support with Daniel than our living situation in southern California could and I’m grateful to my in-laws for giving us a home for 16 months.
One
My parents’ cat Homer. When Daniel and I arrived on Monday, Daniel was chattering to my dad using the word “cat” in which he pronounced all three letters instead of it sounding like “cah” or “tah”. He then started repeating the syllable “gree” with “cat”. We put together today that he was talking about Homer and was saying “gris cat”. (We call Homer “gris-gris” because he is a gray cat.) Homer has been Daniel’s buddy — tolerating him, hanging out with him, and even was asleep on my bed when I came in to start putting Daniel to bed last night.
Two
The Trader Joe’s in Claremont, California. I love Trader Joe’s anyway but the store in Claremont has gone above and beyond in how they’ve loved on Daniel for the last 16 months. Almost every crew member in the store knows his name and greeted him by it when we walk in. Their assistant store manager let him ring their bell and one of the crew members who is a psych major would find new and interesting ways to communicate with him. If you are anywhere nearby, please consider patronizing them — they could seriously give lessons to churches and businesses on how to interact with customers who have special needs.
Three
Rain. It was cloudy last night and we got enough to wet down the patio a bit. I am ecstatic. Bring it on, El Niño!
Four
My friend Jenn. Girlfriend had an article on NFP that was picked up by Cosmo, Redbook, and Good Housekeeping. Eschet chayil!
Five
“Open Your Ears, O Faithful People”. I had been listening to a hymn mix that included this hymn on Saturday night and we sang it on Sunday morning. It’s one of my favorites as well!
A Daniel story for today… he woke up to find himself alone in his bedroom tonight around 10 so he went and climbed into bed with my mom. Thankfully, she found it cute and I was able to settle him back on his bed.
Around the house… painting and decluttering going on.
One of my favorite things… the song “God of This City” by Bluetree. The Chris Tomlin version is sub-par.
A few plans for the rest of the week: un packing, enrolling Daniel in school, and getting services for him transferred up here.
Very interesting. My priest’s husband shared this article on Facebook and I thought it was worth sharing. If Oklahoma City can lose a million pounds, what is stopping other cities with at-risk health populations from doing the same?
Impressed. I don’t know who shared the Fat Girl Running blog with me; but dang it, y’all need to go read it and give Mirna some love. She is freaking amazing!
Prerequisite baseball take. The Mets play the Dodgers tonight in LA to determine who gets to go on and face the Cubs. Go Mets! #BeatLA (Bummed that the Cards were knocked out by the Cubs but I’ll live.)
IKEA contest. I saw this IKEA contest in my email and wanted to share. I’m probably going to enter a recipe my dad made for my mom when they were dating. (They’ve been married for 43 years.)
Link-toberfest: Week 3.Kelly’s bonus question this week is: “Who is your favorite blogger that you discovered through Quick Takes?” She shared me as hers and she is definitely mine — as she said, we’ve bonded over the struggles of special needs parenting, I love her off-the-wall sense of humor, and the fact that she doesn’t gloss over the good and bad in her life. She is very truly the definition of “authentic”. I also am pretty sure that there isn’t a place that can contain all the AWESOME if the two of us get a chance to meet. 🙂
Some others who make my favorites list are… Kathleen (another mama who I defer to when it comes to parenting a kiddo with special needs), Jeanne, Angie, Thomas (not blogging these days as being the dad of twins occupies his spare time), Emily, Kate, Jessica (a fellow CofE person and southern Californian), Beth Anne, Mandi, Bonnie, Jennifer (I prayed Joshua home), Marie, Bobbi, and so many others. My Bloglovin overflows on Friday because of Quick Takes! 🙂
Outside my window… dark. I have no idea what temperatures were here because I was gone from Friday morning until tonight but I heard something about triple digits. Yuck!
I am thinking… about whether I would have stood up and proclaimed my Christian faith had I been in the room with the Umpqua Community College shooter. I probably would have done so… which I’m pretty sure would scare the pants off my non-believer parents.
I am thankful… for Promise FM. I’m in the midst of making some hard decisions and it was really helpful to have songs outlining God’s promises for my life while I was driving through central California today!
In the kitchen… didn’t cook today but probably some gluten-free mac n’ cheese tomorrow.
I am wearing… green shirt and capri sweats.
I am going… to be playing “catch up” tomorrow after being gone for four days.
I am wondering… about a lot of things right now.
I am reading…Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson.
I am hoping… school goes well for Daniel tomorrow.
I am looking forward to… Bible study on Wednesday!
I am hearing… nothing.
A Daniel story for today… Mr. Boy usually comes and crawls onto my bed around 11 pm or midnight and he even tucked himself in tonight.
Around the house… silence — everyone but me is asleep.
A favorite quote for today… “Do one thing every day that scares you.” — Eleanor Roosevelt. I chose this one because my mom quotes it to me frequently. (Dealing with social service agencies is not for the faint-hearted!)
One of my favorite things… discovering new artists or lesser known works by established artists of the musical variety.
A few plans for the rest of the week: catching up on errands and paperwork tomorrow, Bible study and probably a quiet service on Wednesday, soccer practice on Thursday, and Matt’s Run on Saturday before Daniel’s soccer game.
A peek into my day… Some of the new songs I heard this weekend:
Greater Church of Lucifer opening. A friend put this on her wall and commented on the nature of them calling themselves a “church”. I’m truthfully more amused by the $25 catered luncheon. Apparently, Satanists now have the sensibilities of Episcopal church women or something. I would have expected alcohol and debauchery for them, not a catered affair.
Travel. Daniel has a long weekend so he and I are road-tripping to San Jose from Friday to Monday. I’d love prayers for good traveling mercies on our way if you are so inclined.
Speaking of stupid… I actually had someone cite this study to me. The scary thing: I could have refuted the SafeMinds people as a sophomore taking high school chemistry.
In case you missed it… At the neurology appointment on Monday, we found out that Daniel’s autism is genetic (he has some duplications in genes on a couple of chromosomes and a deletion in a gene on another one) which means that I can actually tell people that his autism is *NOT* due to us immunizing him for MMR and that their argument is invalid.
That’s it for this week — I’m a bit distracted and have also run out of things to say!
