Thanksgiving

Sometimes when life is super rough, the very best thing you can do is just be thankful.

Thanksgiving is two days away, and I feel I am very blessed.  I am so thankful for my four wonderful children.  I'm grateful that they have the opportunity to go to school, and that we can go to the church of our choice and practice our religion freely.  I'm grateful that we have a roof over our heads and food to eat.  I'm thankful that my children are healthy.

Most of all, I'm grateful for my Father in heaven and His son, Jesus Christ, and the great, atoning sacrifice He made in the garden of Gethsemane and on the cross.  He has always been there for me, in my darkest hours.

On a lighter note, I'm grateful for family, and turkey, and that most of the people in my family don't like cranberry sauce because that means more for me!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

A Favor

I would like to ask a favor of all of my readers.  If you enjoy this blog, and you read it on a regular basis, then please send a message to me or comment below.  Thanks, and again, have a wonderful holiday!

The Upcoming Week

This is the end of the semester.  I have a lot of projects and tests that are due, and work has exploded again.  Then we'll also just throw Thanksgiving into the mix, and visitors from out of town.

So, if you don't see a post from me for a little while, I think I've got several very good reasons.

Carry on, readers.  And have a wonderful holiday!

Letting Go A Little

You know, I had made the decision to change my writing to a completely impersonal style that dealt only with specific issues, and I had made that decision because I was concerned that something I had written might have upset someone.

Which was a really stupid idea.

So, on to other things.

Today, I thought about middle school, and about how it's such a difficult time for kids.  Nobody enjoys it.  If someone handed you a time machine and said, today you get to travel back in time and do middle school all over again, how many of us would actually do it?

That's right.  Probably no one would.

It can be really hard on someone with autism to go through it.  Social cues are hard for a kid on the spectrum to understand.  Sometimes they take things literally.  Sometimes they can't recognize when someone is angry, or sad, or making fun of them.  They don't have the social acumen to take an awkward situation and turn it to their advantage, or stay calm when they're really agitated.

Today my son had a field trip where he participated in a fall dance and lunch.  I almost kept him home.  Something like this fills me with apprehension for him.  A dance means music, and probably loud music.  Which means that it will probably hurt his ears, and he may get overstimulated, and not be able to handle all the noise and lights and people.  And what if someone makes fun of him, or ignores him, or he gets scared, or he wanders away to someplace he's not supposed to be?

These are common worries that parents like us deal with on a daily basis.  But today, it was different. He had already missed a lot of school due to a recent hospitalization, so he really couldn't miss any more.  His friends were going.  I had a mountain of work to catch up on with my real estate business and with school, plus all the responsibilities at home.  Keeping him home really wasn't going to work.  So I said a prayer (actually, a LOT of prayers) and sent him to school and buried myself in work all day.

I warned his siblings:  Your brother is probably not going to be in a good mood when he gets home.

And I explained why, that he had this field trip, blah blah blah.

And I picked him up from school and asked how his day went.

And he was in a good mood and said he had a great time.

Oh.

So I had to come to this conclusion:

I can never completely let him go.  He will probably live with me for the rest of his life, or mine.  (I'm trying to live forever...I'm taking it one day at a time.  Ha!)  But maybe it's time to let him grow up, just a little.

Snake in the Drain

I sit here eating mint chocolate chip ice cream and ruminating about this incredibly long day I just had.

You know, realtors encounter weird things.  We deal with all kinds of people.  Some of them are a joy and a blessing to deal with, and helping them out is a great experience.  The same thing goes for properties.  Sometimes, the properties you come across are wonderful.  You walk in and you think, Oh, this is cute, or Oh, this has great potential or Sweet Baby Moses I can't get out of this fast enough. (Sounds kind of like a woman sizing up a man, right? Heh.)  Then there's the house I encountered today.  It was vacant, but I had to take pictures of the inside of it.  I walked through, thinking, this is a really nice house, it needs a little work, but nothing that can't be done.

That's about when I walked into the hall bathroom and saw the snake coming up out of the bathtub drain.

Just to be clear, I'm not squeamish around reptiles.  My oldest son loves them and I've always been more curious than frightened of most living things.  I love spiders.  I will go to great lengths to capture them if they're in the house and put them outside.  I once had a wasp tangled in my hair. I pulled it out and let it go out the car window.  It didn't sting me.  (Not that I would get so lucky next time).  The point is, I didn't scream or run or whatever women do when they see these things.

But, it did catch me off guard, mostly because I wasn't sure if it was poisonous or not.  And I thought, that really doesn't belong there.  How in the bleep did that thing get in the drain in the first place? Because it was coming OUT of the drain, not trying to slither into it.

And I thought, I can ignore the damaged drywall and the needed paint touch-ups.  But I can't ignore this.

People are a lot like this, too.  Everyone has their idiosyncrasies, and everyone has stuff they need to work on.  Nobody is perfect.  But every now and then I run across someone who hoists a big ol' red flag and I think, I can't ignore that.

And that's when I say, Sweet Baby Moses, I am out of here. And if I can't get out of there physically, then I'm gone emotionally. Because in my experience, ignoring the snake in the drain leads to more problems and complications than it's worth.

Life is short, buy the sofa.

Yesterday I started painting our front living room red.

See, what happened is, I found this antique sofa and chair at a thrift store.  They were both in good condition.  They were covered with crushed velvet and both had a channel back, which you just don't see that much anymore.  I knew it was crazy, but I bought those.  I had no where to put them.  And then I did something even crazier and sent them to an upholstery shop.

Because I have kids, I asked them to cover it in something durable, so the upholsterer chose a sturdy fabric in a muted gray tone...and I just absolutely loved it.

Got sticker shock from the upholsterer.

Brought the sofa and chair home and still had no where to put it.

Realized, that with in-laws coming to visit toward the first of December, that the front room was really ugly...and broke out the can of red paint that sat in my entryway for six months.

I was a little nervous about doing it.  Red is a difficult color in houses.  If you don't get it pre-mixed with primer, it can take more than one coat to cover everything.  This shade took two coats and I'm only half-way done...but here's the thing:  I LOVE it.  The furniture that I went out on a limb and bought for no good reason looks really good in here.  And it's my favorite color scheme:  red, and gray, and there will be a little bit of black, too.

Logan loved it so much he went and changed into all red clothes.  I guess he was trying to match?

The point is, sometimes, you have to follow your heart.  You may feel like you should do something, and there's no good reason to do it.  It may not fit, logically, with what you know at the time.  But in the end, it works out.

I'm looking forward to completing this room with a great deal of anticipation.

Life is short.  Buy the sofa.

Adjusting to Social Change

At the last support group meeting for All Together, a certain topic came up.  This topic had to do with social change; specifically, how when you find out your child has autism, and you have to make adjustments and accommodations for that, it will inevitably affect your social life.

A long time ago, I had this tight little group of friends.  Anyone who knows me well knows that I get a lot of my energy from being around people.  I like my alone time, because everyone needs time to decompress, but I love being around people.  So, this little group of friends and I...we would go out to lunch together, our kids would play together, etc.  You get the drift.

After my son's autism started emerging, things changed.  The phone calls didn't come as often and the invites for my other kids sort of dwindled.  To be fair, this could have also been due to life changes...people getting busy or kids getting older.  But, it just happened to coincide with this time in my life.  I have one distinct memory of meeting some really old friends at a Starbuck's.  My son didn't like being in there.  I don't know if he was having a bad day or what, but he made his  displeasure known.  And I can remember these friends looking at me with a mixture of "we don't know what to do" and "we pity you".

Anyone who knows me well knows that "pity" is not something I want, need, or enjoy.

So, things changed.  Life is like that.  Sometimes, you try really hard to be a friend to someone, and for whatever reason, it doesn't work out.  Perhaps you're at two different places in life.  Maybe the person you're trying to be friends with has a different idea than you about what friendship is. Maybe you're going through something that they have not a clue how to deal with, be it a divorce, or cancer, or an autism diagnosis, so they retreat.

Whatever it is, this is what I've learned.  You can waste a lot of energy, and enjoy a whole lot of heartache, by chasing after somebody who doesn't really want to be a part of your life.  You can bend over backwards for someone, and do everything in your power to make sure they understand that they are important to you as a friend, spouse, lover, whatever...and if they don't feel the same way, then you're wasting your time.  You can't force a heart.  You can't create something out of nothing.

Life is precious, and limited.  Time flies.  Eventually, I found out who my real friends were...and they were the ones who stayed.  They were the ones who educated themselves about my son, and who still see me as me, and not as the mom who has a child with autism.  Each day that passes I find more peace in being greedy with my time, and spending it with uplifting people who don't really care if my son has odd habits or says weird things, or if I live on a specific side of town or drive an old minivan. I've always been about people, not things.  Nice things are nice, but people are more important..because the relationships we form here, and the knowledge we gain, is all we take with us to the next life.

Throw Me The Whip, I'll Throw You a Deadline

(This image was created by Christopher Cahill Jones on dribbble.com)


Well, this morning I woke up and realized:  holy smokes, it's November 2.  That means the semester is more than halfway over, I have piles of projects and assignments to do, Thanksgiving is just around the corner and so is Christmas, and somebody just make it stop.

Seriously, when did things start going so darn fast?  When you're a kid, you feel like you have forever.  Then you get to this point in your life, and the game's afoot.

I feel like that gif up there.

But then I remind myself that I chose this.  And yesterday, for about five seconds, I stood in my living room and thought, "I wonder what it would be like to not have to go to school or work and just sit my bum at home and take leisurely walks if I want and cook fabulous dishes and decorate the house all day, and just take care of the kids..."

Because I used to do that. And I do miss it.

But then I thought, Nah.

I'm a firm believer in reaching for the stars.  Everyone on this earth has their own potential; few people choose to explore it and work for it.

As far as the great ball of deadlines, holidays, and other challenges this week...I've got this.