Daniel broke the W key off my laptop last night and I can’t get it back on — the key itself has plastic parts broken off. I can type well enough — it just feels weird to hit the little rubber knob for that key. So…

— 1 —

There is probably laptop shopping in my future. I’m looking at Lenovo and HP/Compaq. Jon has a Dell and I feel like my laptop (which truthfully is starting to have problems after three years) has fared better than his. Mine has also been transported a whole lot of places so I think all that transport has added to the normal abuse I put it through. I’ll let y’all know what I end up getting if/when I purchase something.

— 2 —

Daniel’s autism diagnosis was confirmed on Monday. A clinical psychologist administered the ADOS and she concurred with the previous suspicions of the MIND Institute and our Regional Center case worker. It was 4 hours from start to finish and I liked the psychologist doing the testing. She was really kind and you could tell that she cared and that she really viewed her job as a way of helping others. It was, however, mentally intense even though I was able to get into my NOOK during some of the testing. (I’m in the middle of Inheritance by Christopher Paolini and I think I’m going to download the entire series onto my NOOK, mostly to save bookshelf space.) My Regional Center case worker was with me through it which was good — I did need someone else there.

— 3 —

On Wednesday, I met with my local school district to start the transition from the Regional Center to the school district. Per the Lanterman Act, Daniel becomes the responsibility of the local school district at age 3 and will remain that way up to the age of 21 if necessary. (The reason is that at age 3, they transfer the focus from a medical one to an educational one.) As he turns 3 in a matter of months, we needed to get the ball rolling on what has to happen to get him transitioned. They told me about the various options, had me sign something authorizing testing, and set up the date/time for the IEP meeting. I also have specialized ABA (applied behavior analysis) training to go through for an in-home component of Daniel’s autism program next weekend. As I have to do it over Sunday, I’m in the process of putting together a team of people to take care of Daniel during church.

— 4 —

I finally found a copy of “I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light” on iTunes. You can find a Youtube video of it here. (I’d embed the video but WordPress is being cranky.) I love the hymn and we never sing it which saddens me. I’m sure it’s not as theologically brilliant as others but its simplicity is what makes it so appealing to me.

— 5 —

I’m so glad that Pauley Perette got to be one of the presenters for the People’s Choice Awards. I love her character on NCIS and she’s a prolific Twitter user. She’s also socially responsible and a Christian to boot. I also loved Kaley Cuoco hosting the show though I think either she or Tina Fey deserved to win more than the girl from “Glee”. (I’m not a “Gleek”.) Oh yes… the part of the opening with Neil Patrick Harris was awesome. The “Gleehab” pun was perfect.

— 6 —

Amy Wellborn has an interesting rant on “small groups”. It is indeed curious that the search terms leading to her blog recently have involved small groups because they’re kind of a Protestant thing, especially prevalent in megachurches or in chapters of national Christian organizations like Intervarsity. (Intervarsity, by the way, is not exclusively Protestant. My chapter had a sizeable Catholic minority in it, especially during my last year of college.) In those situations, corporate worship services are so incredibly large (both in terms of people and in number of services) that one can get lost in them, purposely or otherwise. The purpose of “small groups” are to have a more intimate gathering for informal worship and Scripture study. Amy has a point — daily Mass is an excellent example of a small group, though I wouldn’t say it’s the original one. It’s a small group of people gathered for worship, the Word, and the Eucharist. I recommend reading her thoughts — they’re excellent and as one who has participated in them, I totally see her point.

— 7 —

You know… I’d totally be OK with some rain about now. It’s a La Nina year so things are going to be dry but it also means that the jet stream has been shifted waaaaaay north and towns like Cordova, Alaska are getting snowed in. I checked Weather.Com and I’m going to have to wait 5 days for rain. So NOT amused by this.

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