Catch Up

1. I should start calling this 7 Quick Takes Sunday because that seems to be when I have the time and energy to write it.

Yesterday I took the kids across the bridge to Limerick, PA, to say good-bye to my high school friend and her husband whose company we've enjoyed for the last couple of years but who are now off to a new adventure in Colorado Springs. You see, they have a dog named Truman who Alex is very attached to.

I started talking to Alex about saying good-bye to Truman a few weeks ago and planned this trip last week. But mid-week he started telling me he didn't want to go and they needed to stay and not move away. Then I realized Alex has never had the experience of saying good-bye to anyone he doesn't have some reasonable expectation of seeing again. No one he really cared about, that is. So this was a big deal. But I knew if I didn't make him go, it would be worse later.

I have to say, my favorite scene ever on The Big Bang Theory, which I only started watching last summer, is this one:

If you live in a house with ASD, you know change is hard. Terribly, terribly hard. There are many debates about Dr. Sheldon Cooper and what classification he might have, but he gets this part perfectly right.

So, armed with food, electronic toys for the children, dog toys for the dogs, we set off for the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The drive time is only about an hour but my spoiled children thought it took forever. Alex had some anxiety getting in the car, didn't spend every possible moment in Truman's lap, and he decided after 2 hours it was time to come home. But we did go and come back without a major explosion. I'll call that a success.

2. We had a few warm days this week that allowed that poor daffodil to open almost completely. This photo is from yesterday:

3. The Phillies had their opening day in Texas with the Rangers on Monday, which they won 14-10, so it was a rather odd game. I watched the game in the evening and found it did not interest me as much as in the past. If you read my blog, you'll know that watching the Phillies games last spring helped to keep me sane, because Alex was on the verge of exploding every day, all day, for months on end. When we finally had him settled in October with new meds, a new school, and a new teacher, Marshall and I found ourselves in a state of PTSD. That probably contributed to the nasty winter we experienced; it wasn't just the weather making us blue.

If you missed it the last time I shared this link, read this blog entry now from another mother who lives a life like ours. And don't miss the comments or you'll miss the label Marshall and I use to describe our life: Ongoing Traumatic Stress Disorder.

We are blessed that right now because life is fairly calm. But the whole trip to say good-bye to our friends and their dogs yesterday was exhausting; I came home completely spent. And we are currently trying to fit into our regular medical visits a psychiatrist who is seeing all of us individually (well, kinda; I'm taking each kid to see him and staying to talk to him about them, so he gets Alex + me or Miranda + me) which is helpful, yes, but complicates everything.

I just spent 10 minutes trying to find the Animaniacs episode "De-Zanitized" on YouTube but Warner Brothers has helpfully taken it down. It's on Amazon Prime, if you need a refresher. It was definitely in the back of my mind and I traveled to and from Dr. Ayala's office a week ago Friday for my own appointment and this last Friday for Alex's.

4. If you don't follow me on Goodreads, my new favorite authors are Julie James and Jill Shalvis. I have only two more books of James' that I haven't read yet, one of which comes out next month, which is disappointing because they are a great deal of fun. Shalvis has helpfully written 12 stories in her Lucky Harbor series and I've only read 4 so far, so hopefully that will keep me busy for a while. I also read Anne Gracie's new book Winter Bride this week and loved it. Waiting for me on my desk is Kristan Higgins' Waiting for You, which has only been out for a week or two, which is book 3 of her Blue Heron series that is excellent. I spent the winter reading everything Higgins had ever published and while I don't love every one of her books, they are all worth reading. I did give up on the Julie Garwood contemporary series that started with Heartbreaker. I read about 80 pages of Mercy and decided I didn't want to finish it. She spent too much time with the villains and not enough with her hero and heroine and that kind of story does not interest me.

5. Captain America: The Winter Soldier opened on Friday and I realized when I glanced at the reviews that, in order to make everything work out in the right order, we would need to finally watch Thor: The Dark World and then catch up on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which we stopped watching the week that the new Thor film came out because it referenced the movie and I didn't want to experience any spoilers, before we went to see Cappy's new adventure. So, last night we watched Thor and, as usual, Tom Hiddleston as Loki is my absolute favorite part of movie. He's just ... perfect. Maybe we can get through 9 episodes of S.H.I.E.L.D. before next weekend when we might talk the grandparents' into babysitting.

Rio 2 comes out next weekend and my mother and I have decided to see it together since the children refuse to go with us. Yet another annoying ASD aspect: they're just not into movie theatres. Too dark, no way to stop the film if it's scary, no snacks, no bathroom breaks. Well, I can see their point.

6. What with baseball and Thor this week, I had more time to stitch. Here's the progress pic:

7. My gluten free adventure continues. I tried my impossible to ruin pork pot pie recipe on Wednesday night with a gluten free pie pastry and corn starch as a gravy thickener instead of flour and it failed horribly. Mostly inedible. But what was constant stomach discomfort 3 weeks ago has subsided into an occasional thing and I'm able to eat fruit and vegetables again, which I haven't regularly in months, so it's not all bad. But I'm still figuring out my way.

And here's Jen. Her new book is coming out soon and looks fascinating.

Water-logged

1. We had more than 3 inches of rain fall over the weekend. But I'm trying to keep myself in a grateful frame of mind, so I'm telling myself, at least it wasn't snow.

2. Since it wasn't snow but rain, that must mean it's been warmer! Yes, it has. Here's proof:

It's not quite open, but it's closer.

3. From FB on Friday:

As many of you are aware, April is Autism Awareness month. Usually, since we live with it every day, our household doesn't pay much attention to events and such. But this year, I want to be blogging and posting about it more, from the perspective of what it's like to live with 2 children on the spectrum. And I want to start by thanking our many friends and family who love our kids as they are and don't expect them to be anything else. I was just counting in my head and it's too many to tag. That's a lot of people. Thank you. It is a tremendous help to me to know my kids can be themselves when they are with you and I can relax from being Over-Vigilant Parent. You help me rest.

4. Thanks to my wonderful husband, I ran off and saw Veronica Mars on Friday night. It was perfect.  I came home with a smile on my face so big, it lasted all night, in spite of the incessant rain, and I want to binge my way through the first season all over again. I can't even decide which is my favorite episode. Maybe "Clash of the Tritons." I don't actually own the DVD's. Maybe that should change. And did you hear? There's a book that follows directly after the events of the film, called The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line. I can't wait to read it.

5. But, hey, the wonderful roofer came Tuesday and repaired the leaky roof, so there was no water in the house during the 3 days of rain. Very thankful!

6. Friday, I took off my Porcelain nail wraps and put on Queen Anne. They are awesome. And it only took me about an hour to do the application. Definitely getting faster.

They're so pretty. I don't hate my nails anymore.

7. I did get a little stitching done Saturday night while catching up on tennis. Although both finals were kinda boring. It's much more interesting when the battle isn't one-sided. Still, congratulations to Novak and Serena.

Moving forward, slowly but surely.

And here's Jen.

Spring is Here?

1. So Thursday was officially the first day of spring, which is great an all, but there's another storm coming Tuesday night. It will probably only give us a dusting of snow. Probably.

But in happier news, my crocuses are blooming:

2. In other happy news, we got an estimate from a roofer for our roof repair and he expects we don't need a whole new roof but will charge a reasonable amount to fix the leak and might even be able to do it this Tuesday, before the next storm arrives. This is especially helpful since we had to have a bowl catching water in the front room closet during the rain storm last week.

3. On the recommendation of several friends, I saw Dr. Chung of the Chung Institute of Integrative Medicine on Thursday, hoping to find someone to help me with the my escalating stomach issues. He identified 3 possible problems, ordered a bunch of tests, and recommended a gluten-free diet as one part of a solution. So, good-bye chocolate covered pretzels, sour dough bread and any gluten-filled lasagna. Still, I'm consoling myself that I'd rather lose gluten than chocolate. But it will be quite a process of adaptation.

4. I have not yet been able to see the Veronica Mars movie. Somehow, the regular stuff of daily life seems more pressing. But the ladies who clean my house came Tuesday which always cheers me up.

5. My honey seems to have restored our DVR to perfection and cut the cable bill. Talk about my own personal super hero.

6. One of my friends from church shared this great list of 21 Tips to Keep Your S**t Together When You're Depressed. I think she expresses many of my own thoughts perfectly.

7. If you've never seen any of the videos from How It Should Have Ended, boy, are you missing out.

And here's Jen, although she didn't have time to write her own list this week, so this is just the aggregation of all the others.

From the Land of the Hacking Cough

1. We've all had the flu now. I have one more dose of my antibiotic; Marshall went on antibiotics on Friday since a week spent in bed did nothing to bring down his fever. And Alex spiked a fever as soon as we woke him to get ready to fly to Texas last Monday. We think Miranda had a mild version last weekend although she barely ran a fever at all. She mostly stayed in bed watching some videos on YouTube of people playing Minecraft. She doesn't actually play the game, mind you, but just watches someone else playing and narrating.

It was exciting flying from Philadelphia to Orlando to San Antonio to visit dear friends for 5 days with a feverish child. I was praying the whole week that all the germs would stay with us and no one we encountered would get sick. But we'd planned the trip for 15 months previously and the tickets were non-refundable. So we went.

And even though Alex was living from one dose of Children's Advil to the next and sleeping poorly (he and I shared a bed) for the first 3 days, we still had a lovely time.

I can't honestly say he had less anxiety on this trip (a new place, flying on airplanes without daddy, to meet new people who don't have all the right food) because of his fever or not. I've no idea. The sweet doggies certainly helped calm him.

Tiger on the left, Daisy on the right. Alex and I spent many happy moments snuggling with them. I didn't get a picture of Tiger sitting on Miranda's lap, unfortunately.

2. On the way out, in the Orlando airport:

On the way home. Our flight leaving Atlanta for Philadelphia was delayed about 45 minutes.

3. Here's Dawn and I at my wedding, June 21, 1997:

Here's our picture from Saturday morning, right before leaving for the airport. We've aged a bit, 6 kids later.

4. Tirzah is almost 4 and a complete ham.

5. This is Aaron reading Calvin & Hobbes to Miranda before bed, on Friday night. Sorry it's out of focus.

6. Dawn recently joined Jamberry as an Independent Consultant. Here are my efforts to help her out:

I like the blue nails even better than I expected.

7. Other random pictures:

Next week I hope to have a review of the Veronica Mars movie!

And here's Jen.

I Hate Packing

1. Tomorrow the children and I fly to San Antonio, TX, to visit my best friends from college who conveniently married each other and we haven't seen each other for 8 years. I would have been all prepared to go (house clean, bags packed, etc.) if I hadn't spent the last 11 days in bed with the flu. Marshall finally sent me to the doctor yesterday morning where they gave me antibiotics and real cough syrup. So, today, I'm starting to feel like myself and am spending the whole day packing because that's all the energy I have. Hopefully, tomorrow, I will have enough adrenaline going to keep the children in tow from Philly to Orlando to San Antonio.

2. This is our first trip with just the three of us, leaving Daddy at home. I've been planning it with my college besties for 15 months. But it will be an adventure. Of course, we're flying Southwest Airlines, because they have special "get on first" boarding passes for special needs families and their flight crews are, on the whole, a lot more cheerful. I plan to throw myself on their mercy at every opportunity.

3. I don't have a packing list. I generally just work from the one in my head, which frustrates Marshall to no end because then he doesn't know what to do to help. But it would take too long to write it all down.

4. Alex has no homework for the week (I'm taking both kids out of school for the trip because we're going when San Antonio schools have their spring break) because his teacher understands that going to a new place with people he doesn't remember or has never met before without daddy there to help is plenty to do in one week. You should have seen the grocery list I emailed to my friends just to keep him afloat for the week we're away. Miranda's teacher wasn't quite so understanding and sent home a big packet. I've decided to try to do some everyday and then not worry about it. Our spring break has already been all but eaten up by snow days, anyway.

5. As I was thinking about packing snacks for the plane, I was trying to prepare myself to be calm and insistent with the TSA. I always bring cups of applesauce for the kids to take their meds with and applesauce only comes in 4 oz containers. And I usually bring some of Miranda's vanilla milk drink boxes, which are 8 ounces. I've decided I can buy Alex some juice drink boxes on the other side of security, but these things I need to take with me. Hopefully, they won't go for the strip search this time. (Not kidding. I got that coming back from San Diego in 2012 because I wouldn't give up the drink boxes and they smelled funny to the machines.) Someday, we're going to have actual security instead of security theatre, but until then, I try to be patient and keep saying the magic word, "autism."

6. Pray for us. Pray that Alex's anxiety with be replaced with interest and excitement about seeing a cool new place. And meeting two new dogs. And people, of course.

7. I'll try to post fun pictures from Texas, but we don't have a lot of plans to go places. Mostly, to just be together and play. I think Miranda will find staying in a house with 3 little girls to be the best thing ever, after Aunt Katie's pool in San Diego. I think Alex will attach himself to the daddy of the house or follow the dogs around, reading to them. And I will enjoy being with good friends.

Here's Jen.

Melt! Melt! Melt! Melt!

1. Sorry about the blog break. The Tuesday before Valentine's Day I came down with the stomach flu and life ground to a halt. That Tuesday afternoon my mother came over to feed the kids dinner and supervise homework. I sent my honey to sleep at my parents' house so he wouldn't be exposed to my germs. Wednesday morning my mother came back to do the breakfast and get on the bus show, since I had been up all night. I think we both napped that afternoon and then she came back again to pick up the kids and all their stuff to keep them through the snow-pocalypse. Marshall stayed in the city Wednesday and Thursday night, courtesy of his employer, so he could walk to work each day. The children we re-delivered Friday morning before the delayed-opening of school so they could go back to school. Oh, and don't forget, my dad came over Thursday to use the snow blower he gave us to clear the driveway.

If you missed it, we would have died without my parents' help the week of Valentine's day. Of course, we've had so much snow in February that they are now considering spending all of February, 2015, in California, moving from house to house and they visit friends, family and grandchildren, completely avoiding NJ snow.

2. Since all I did when I was up all night feeling awful was play on the Internet, here's what I spent my time doing: sending FB messages to friends on the West coast and then, when they were asleep, in Japan; watch Olympic curling live, visit the Veronica Mars Tumblr page, watch Keith Green on YouTube. And then the next day, I watched a lot more Olympic coverage on my laptop. Because the tv wasn't exactly working. And still isn't, kinda.

3. So our television system is rather complex. Marshall built a DVR many years ago (we can't remember how long) and we've been adjusting the system every since. However, the software that runs it stopped getting official updates after the company was purchased by Google several years ago, so sooner or later, we're going to have to change our system. 2 years ago we switched from DirecTV to Comcast for both better service and price, but those advantages have slipped away. Now I have to decide how much I want to pay to be able to watch Tennis competitions and Phillies games. $150 per month seems too much.

Currently, we can watch anything on the system (nearly a terabyte of videos) but we can't record anything new. Somehow, a leaky roof after the snow-pocolypse took precedent.

4. So our roof didn't like all the snow and ice it was holding for weeks on end, so we have a leak in an inconvenient place. Marshall was able to patch it temporarily and now we have to interview roofers to see how hard it will be to repair the problem and how much more will a new roof cost. The roof is at least 15 years old and we know it will need to be replaced eventually but we really didn't want to do that this spring. But then, when is it a good time to get a new roof?

5. My new favorite podcast is Hang Up and Listen from Slate. I read most of what Slate publishes (my mother-in-law and I love Dear Prudence and the weekly news quizzes by Ken Jennings). Lots of weird stuff there, too, but still interesting.

6. The snow is melting. We had rain last week and then a warm weekend so most of the pile is gone. Of course, the polar vortex is back so the children were grabbing for gloves and big coats again today. The bright sunshine helps in that it is cheering but it also fools you into thinking it's not 30 degrees out, before wind chill.

Yesterday, we all spent time outside cleaning up trash and Marshall and I spent some time looking at the trees, checking for broken branches. It took us quite a bit of maneuvering but we got it down to the ground. Now all we need is another nice day to cut it up for pick up.

Here's the branch:

The picture doesn't do it justice. The end is about as thick as my thigh.

Signs of spring are pretty sparse around here (although my mother and I are going to the Philadelphia Flower Show next week), but I found this yesterday:

7. Before I got sick, I did get a little more stitching done:

Two weeks from today we leave for a week in San Antonio, Texas. Eeek! I've a lot to do before then.

Here's Jen.

Did I Even Leave the House this Week?

1. Sunday morning my honey and I woke to Alex coming into our bathroom and vomiting on the floor. Then he announced he'd just thrown up in the living room as well (why can't they ever miss the carpet? Most of the house now has laminate or tile or linoleum?). And the week went pretty much downhill from there. Alex was sick with a nausea-dizzy virus from Sunday - Tuesday. My mother had it Monday - Tuesday and I had it Wednesday - Friday.

My schedule for the week was full last Sunday and now it's just a pile of broken appointments or meetings missed. I even missed the big Youth Group party on Sunday. If I was contagious, I didn't want to give it to anyone else. And there's something about vomit that makes you want to wash everything in sight.

What's funny is the night I was dizziest was when I sat down to finish Game Change: Double Down 2012. It seemed an appropriate mood to read about American politics. Good book; scary system. It did give me significant insights into NJ governor Chris Christie. I'm hoping the current scandal permanently scuttles his presidential ambitions. He's an effective governor and I'd rather he stay and continue to be so than go wandering around Iowa and New Hampshire. He's charismatic to be sure but too volatile for the international stage. Although putting he and Putin together would be fun to watch.

2. If you missed the news (ha!), there was a large snowfall here on Monday which meant no school Monday and delayed opening on Tuesday. Then there was that ice storm on Wednesday, so we had another delayed opening. Then today was a scheduled half-day for teacher in-service. I'm amazed teachers got anything done this week.

3. I realized this week that, once again, I treat Alex's teacher as one of my closest friends, communicating with her almost daily, sharing pictures and anecdotes all through the week. The only people I text more are Marshall and my mother. What does this mean, other than Alex is a high-maintenance kid? I'm not sure.

4. I've done a bit of stitching lately. Here's the most recent progress picture:

I shouldn't have been surprised by my need to unwind my second skein of DMC 355 Terra Cotta - Dark since it is the primary color of all 4 patterns. You can see all of them here. I was surprised to find that the publisher has discontinued the iris and tulip patterns. Yet another reasons to buy ahead of you're actual stitching schedule, a process known by other stitchers as a "stash enhancement experience" or "sex."

5. Simcha has an absolutely hilarious post this week about dogs. Go read it! Of course, she reminds me of all the reasons I haven't insisted we get a dog this year. Maybe if I can keep borrowing Truman or Pepper, it will be enough to give me my doggie fix.

6. The Winter Olympics started last night and I am suddenly a fan of slopestyle. Go figure. The only problem is that our DVR has lost it's ability to tune any channel for longer than about 2 hours and when it fails, it necessitates a reboot of the server, the channel tuner and the display box. Hopefully, a new tuner, arriving tomorrow from Amazon, will fix everything. I know, there is never a good time for a DVR to fail but right before the Olympics? My honey is not happy with the timing. At least there isn't any tennis until March.

7. It actually felt warm today, The sun was out and everything. Then I looked at the thermometer: 33 degrees. Scary.

Here's Jen.