New Stuff!

Today was quite the day for a whole lot of different emotions -happy, sad, angry, worried -pretty much ran the gamut. So where to begin to write about this?

I think I'll start with Maya. The report in the notebook that goes back and forth to school with her every day had some news in it that was a bit unsettling about how Maya wasn't very nice today to one of her classmates -pushing him while the kids were in line for a drink and then, trying to boss him around a bit. A little talking to was in store for her from her TSS as well as her teacher. Although we don't "like" to get reports like this on her, it isn't surprising either as she does have this streak going on now -a lot -where she thinks she is in charge of everything and is on a par, with administration of justice with her teacher. It's kind of humorous at times but still and all, this is far from desirable behavior that we want her to exhibit too, ya know.

The good thing in her notebook today though was that the kids now have a student teacher in their class and Maya's teacher commented that this might serve as a good conversation starter with Maya. She tends to have standard answers for us when questioned about her school day, you see. Normally, if you ask her what she did, or did she learn anything, or who did she play with, her answers all tend to be either "Nothing" -learned nothing, did nothing, etc., and/or "I don't know" which tends to be really frustrating for us as we try to get her to discuss her day with us.

Well at supper tonight, Mandy asked her if there was anything new at school, in her class and she immediately began to talk -very openly -telling us that they have a new teacher, her name is "Miss Woods" and she is a student at Penn State where she is learning to be a teacher! Yes, pretty much word for word there -and all in one big breath too!

So, obviously this student teacher made a big impression on Maya as we didn't have to hog tie her and drag this information out of her at all!

After that though, the supper discussion went downhill really quickly as Maya wasn't the least bit interested in eating what I had prepared (Oriental pork in a brown gravy type sauce with bamboo shoots, water chestnuts and bean sprouts -over rice). She was highly ticked off at me because I hadn't fixed a separate "meal" for her and Kurtis. But I told her the time has come where she will have to learn to adjust to eating foods that her Mommy, Daddy, sister Kate and Gram like to eat and that Gram is no longer going to fix macaroni and cheese or chicken fingers for her and her brother every day of the week. So it is going to be business as it usually was back when my kids were little -orders of "Sit up, shut up and eat!" in other words.

She did fuss about this deal a good bit but did end up eating the pork and rice -although Mandy did have to wheedle her into eating by feeding her, tiny bite, by tiny bite. Kurtis, on the other hand, did nothing at the table but play with the rice. So, he ended up munching on some plain bread and butter -which makes him quite happy when we have foods that he refuses to eat. In his case, sometimes it is that we have stuff he thinks he doesn't like and other times, he reacts that way to food that he normally will pig out on so there is no rhyme or reason with his actions and reactions at the table. Just have to drop back five and punt with him -which means some evenings he just has some bread and butter, other nights when he turns down the dinner fare, he might end up eating cereal or if he's really lucky, I might be able to find some leftover in the fridge that he appeals to him then. Picky, picky eaters these two can be!

I had a doctor's appointment today with the new woman doctor in the area -an ob-gyn doc and got referred there because my family doctor didn't like the test results from my last Pap test. I must say I really liked this new doctor -very thorough and also, very friendly and nice too. The upshot of this visit is that I have to go back in two weeks because she and her partner in the office both feel my pap test warrants some kind of scope test -don't remember now the name of it -but it will enable them to check further in my innards to make sure there is no trace of cancer in the female organs.

The upsetting, very unsettling stuff going on here though concerns my SIL and his endeavor for the past year now to get himself established in an auto repair/inspection business of his own.

His actions -or rather some of his inactions at times -have been driving both Mandy and I a bit bonkers. From getting up around 8 a.m. and then, parking in front of the tv in the other recliner, cup of tea in his hand and just staring at the tv screen -or more likely, off into space -and then, maybe -if we are lucky, he might venture out the door to go to the garage around 10 a.m.! Whast is annoying to us about this -and I'll wager it has cost him some valued business/customer potential too -is that the sign on the door at the garage says his hours are from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. but it's pretty hard to work on cars, do business then if you don't shoe up at the shop until 10 or 10:30 a.m. -sometimes not until 11 a.m.! I can't understand why he can't figure out how convoluted his logic is on this but then, who am I to judge there I suppose!

Now, the guy he was sort of in partnership with at this garage has pulled out of their arrangement and the lease on the garage, plus the bills for the the utilities and such were all in the partner's name with today now (Wednesday -today) being the last day of the lease!

So as I write this, we really don't know if he will be able to figure out a way to keep operating in that location. And, if he doesn't -because he has no alternative place in mind that he could afford to lease, who knows what he's going to do or be able to do, etc.! This is really unsettling because, obviously, the income, livelihood, for him and for Mandy and the kids all depend on this job of his!

But how can one get somethings through to someone who does frequently tend to exist in a bit of a dream world, ya know?

For me, I'm just going to have to allow some of the tenets I learned a long, long time ago via Al-Anon, to "Live and Let God" pretty much. I can not control what I can not change and therefore, I have to let this go in order that I can be free of as much of the stress impacting on me.

Tonight now when I went to open my blog, someone had closed everything down earlier on the computer so I had to sign in to open my blog -something I don't usually have to do. When I did that, it opened to my Dashboard and I noticed then that I have several new followers -apparently -according to the number it was showing on my dashboard anyway. So I clicked into that to see who they were and was quite surprised to find a young friend/acquaintance of mine on there as a follower. (I didn't even realize she had a blog,)

But anyway, I clicked into her blog and I'm gonna give her a little plug here!

This blog - Memories In Focus -is done by a young woman who lives in this area and works in the journalism trade. She's very interested in photography along with local history and loves to go traipsing about the woods in this area, snapping some fantastic shots too as she goes! She's a very talented young lady and if you would, please check out her blog, read some of her posts and view her pictures. I'm betting you'd also be quite happy to add her to your own list of blogs to keep up on -either via your reader or what ever other method you use to keep tabs on other bloggers. Be sure to leave a comment and tell her that I sent you there too, will ya?

And finally, tonight I want to leave you with some pictures of my most recent completed craft project -a new tabletopper that I started working on very late Sunday night and I completed it tonight! I should have been able to have finished it last night but unfortunately, it became much more important to my system -or so it seemed -to catch upon some always much needed sleep!

Here then is the latest item - a tabletopper cloth, size 31x31 inches and the name of this project is "Oh Tannenbaum." It was really a lot of fun to do this one and as you can tell by the time I started it to when I finished it, the work was quite easy and went fast! My kind of project there for sure!




Now, I need to figure out what project I should tackle next! I have another tabletopper in my bag -same size as this one above -with a snowflake design of red and gold on a very dark Christmas Green fabric I could begin or, maybe I should tackle one of the sets of coasters I got to do up but they are counted cross-stitch and I'm not sure I want to mess with that stuff right now. I really need to do up some stuff that will work up fairly quickly so that as it gets closer to the holidays I can then devote my time to bigger projects -like maybe at least one more big tablecloth or perhaps two -if I can really get on a roll and work quickly! The idea of working quickly while doing embroidery work is quite laughable for me as I am really a pretty slow stitcher although my neighbor and good friend, Shirley, thinks I am a speed queen at this stuff. That's only because she has lots of other things she has to do around the house all the time, plus a husband she has to feed and tend to (LOL) whereas I don't have that kind of responsibility in my life. All I have to worry about, for the most part, is figuring out what to cook for supper and usually, washing up the dishes afterward or occasionally, having to watch the grandkids if Mandy has to work or wants to go to an Autism Support Group meeting or shopping, etc. The rest of the time -if I want -I can just work on whatever project has caught my eye and attention at the time. That makes a really big difference in how much I can do with respect to this crafting stuff ya know!

So for tonight, I'm gonna maybe draw straws to see what to tackle first and then, go to bed sometime before the sun comes up!

Peace -and Happy Crafting!