My Apologies

I'm really behind tonight -mainly because the past 4-5 days I have been busy doing something besides blogging and embroidery. I read a book -one that Mandy got me for Christmas and it's one I would highly recommend to anyone too! Written by John Grogan -the Columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and also the author o f the bestseller -"Marley and Me" (from which the movie was taken) and it's about his life, growing up and his relationship with his parents, especially with his father. Although there are many humorous parts in this book, it isn't funny as "Marley and Me" is, but it is gentle humor, often self-deprecating and just enough to keep the story going with a lot of interest in his family.

Besides reading that book, I crocheted two little dish scrubbies -just as an experiment really cause my crochet abilities generally lend themselves mainly to making things like baby afghans or every once in a blue moon, a full sized afghan. I'm not all that great at reading crochet instructions, ya see.

And then, I got on a kick to do some knitting too and I finished three boa type scarves, working on a fourth one now. These are made from yarn called "eyelash yarn" and I love to make these -love to wear 'em too!

Oh and I did finish another embroidery project as well -a set of terry-cloth hand towels.

As soon as I get my act caught up on my blog reading, get a few photos transferred over and such, I'll post some photos then in the near future with pictures of my latest craft endeavors.

So, if I haven't been by your place to read your latest post, hang in there, I'm working my way through a long list of posts to be read and I'll get there -hopefully soon too.

Monday night (yesterday now,) Mandy and the kids and I went to State College for supper at TGIF's (Thank Goodness Its Fridays). We met up with several of Mandy's friends from the autism support group as we all had coupons through the Easter Seal Society for an Autism Family Dinner night! Mandy and I had to pay for our meals but the kids got their meals free. I thought that was a pretty nice gesture on the part of the restaurant through the Easter Seal Socieyt and they had one section of the restaurant set aside for anyone with an autistic family member by designating the tables and booths with three balloons tied to each booth or table. THe kids loved it! Both of 'em even ate their meals very nicely too! Because they have macaroni and cheese on the kiddy menu there, Mandy and I both figured Maya would want that but she surprised us by ordering the cheeseburger and for her side dish, she chose to have a tossed salad with ranch dressing. The salad was really a big shocker to us and even more so when she ate almost every bite of it too!

Kurtis gave us a little surprise as well at the restaurant. Mandy had ordered an appetizer -salsa-type chips with spinach dip -and Kurtis ate the chips and even ate the dip too! This is the child who normally will turn his head and push (even throw) anything that even slightly looks like it may contain a vegetable so to see him eating these chips with the spinach dip was quite a surprise to us. Then, after he finished eating, he managed to grab Maya's cup with a straw in it (just water in the cup but Kurtis didn't know that) and he tried his level best to drink out of the cup using the straw! For him to try to drink anything that isn't served to him via his bottle -and isn't white milk too -is a recipe for disaster usually involving his pitching of a major fit and possibly throwing the item if he gets the chance at doing that. But tonight, he tried, really tried, to get a drink from that cup and using the straw. Gives us renewed hope that someday -possibly soon -we'll be able to see him graduate from using a bottle to a sippy cup!

The other thing I'm apologizing for tonight is that I have had to make a change to my blog and if you leave a comment, you'll see what I mean. I had to reinstate the word verification once again.

This was necessitated today because my blog got hit by not one but three spam comments -all about viagra! Just the thing that I know everyone wants to read a big blurb about, don't 'cha? From reading blogs this a.m., I saw that I wasn't the only one to get hit by this type of action nor was I the only one who decided to counter by enabling word verification either. Blogger Lime was hit even harder -way harder -than I was in that she recieved 13 comments of the spam variety!!!

What really ticked me off about this particular episode of the spam comments was that when I went to my sitemeter to try to see where (geographically) the commenter is located, there was no record on my sitemeter of this person's having visited my blog! So, I whipped off a little note of inquiry to Sitemeter asking how this could be. THeir response was that perhaps it had come from someone reading my blog via a reader and commenting from that. However, I know several people who use reader to read my blog and they always have to go to my blog and enter it (as I have to do when I leave a comment on any blogs I have on my reader) so that leaves a "footprint" then on my sitemeter and I can tell when then have been visiting that way. I've gone back through 4-5 days worth of records on my sitemeter and could find no evidence whatsover of when/how this spam blogger/commenter had visited. However, the person who had commented did have a blog and the name showing -highlighted -in my e-mail about the comments led me back to his(her) blog which with no posts whatsoever on it and it being a new blog -just set up within the past month -leads me to believe the person who did, is doing this, is just that -a spam blogger only! So I did take some actions from that point of notifying Blogger about this particular blogger. Maybe they will shut him down or at least cut him off at the pass for a day or two -or more!

I'll be back soon -I hope -with a post and also with photos of my projects too!

In the mean time, don't forget this is still Autism Awareness month too.

Oh -and one more thing, before I forget - the news on Mandy and Clate's friend -Lacey -who had the kidney transplant last week is still all very good! As a matter of fact, she came home from Pittsburgh sometime over the weekend -has to go back this week for her first out-patient type checkup with the surgeon but overall, she'd doing great!

So I'll close this out with that -on a positive note!

As Suldog would say here in closing -"Back soon with better stuff!" Well, I can't compete with him on the better stuff, but I can say I'll be back again soon, I hope!

Peace!