Acceptance and Awareness

If you read my blog regularly, follow me and my rambling posts, you know then that I am a very, very proud grandparent! (Okay, I'm also a very proud parent too of two beautiful daughters and one terrific son, but I also have three grandchildren who have made my life more beautiful than I ever thought life could possibly be!)

And, with respect to my grandchildren, you also know that my younger daughter, her husband, their two small children as well as my son-in-law's oldest daughter all live with me so I am a grandparent with access to the grandkids 24-7!

With that in mind, you also already know too that those two younger grandchildren both have autism. My children and I also participated in the Autism Speaks Walk over at Penn State the past three years too in an effort to raise funds for this cause. (This year, we were unable to participate due to many conflicts in our schedules to the date of the walk so we took had to take a "leave of absence" so to speak.

However, and although here too I am late in getting myself organized and planning my posts pertaining to autism, I will be trying to post things throughout the month of April in recognition that April is Autism Awareness Month.

Autism is, if you aren't already aware of this, a brain disorder that affects many, many children and adults. Current reports today say it affects one in one hundred individuals although in some articles you may read the numbers as being one in 150, another one I saw recently said it is one in 90 that have autism or fall under the autism spectrum.

That's a whole lot of people, ya know!

A lot of people who are unaware (who on earth could that possibly be now with all the publicity that is showered on us by the media these days) of what it means to have autism; what it means to be a parent/grandparent too, of someone with this disorder.

And that's the part I want to address in my posts -what it is like to be a grandparent to a child with autism.

I will not discuss things that also are often in the news with respect to Autism and that is the controversy pertaining to autism and vaccines. Why? Well, mainly because I don't believe that correlation actually exists. So that, for me, is the end of that discussion.

When my granddaughter was born and the very first time I saw her, held her in my arms, I don't know what it was but there was something that came over me that told me this little girl was so special, different, and that she was going to need some extra special care and guidance.

It wasn't that she looked different from other newborns because she didn't. As a matter of fact, she was just plain gorgeous and no, I am not being just a bragging old grandma when I saw that because from the very first that we took Maya out in public and others saw her too, they also saw what I saw and that was that she was just a perfect, beautiful little baby! Yes, she was!

But to me, holding her that first time, it was just a feeling I got that ran through me, nothing I can describe other than that.

Early on though, by the time she was 7-8 months old, my older daughter and I were noticing little things, subtle things, that got us to wondering -and also worrying a bit too -that there might be something awry with this sweet, precious baby.

The very first thing that we noticed was that she would not -or perhaps could not -make eye contact with us.

Then, when she started to stand, I began to notice that you couldn't get her to pay attention to anything either. At first, I worried that she might have a hearing problem but I conducted my own brand of a test -no, it wasn't scientific, but it served my purposes -as I watched her one day to gauge her reaction to the tv set. (She would watch the tv screen for very long periods and you couldn't draw her away from the images there.) So one day, the tv was off and she was in her playpen, occupied with something else, but when I turned the tv on, using the remote control, the tiny (very, very slight) sound that happened when I clicked the tv on was all she needed and she was up, standing in her playpen, eyes peeled to the tv screen, waiting for the pictures to appear. That told me then and there that her hearing was intact!

Trying to play the little teaching games most all parents/grandparents use with babies -the "So big" thing, trying to get her to point to body parts, trying to get her to verbalize anything, all seemed to no avail or no attention from her. When she began to walk and at that time, most babies have certain toys they like and the identify then, she ignored most of her toys much of the time and instead, would pick up -often, just a piece of paper and would carry that around the house, paying attention only to that and ignoring people around her, toys around her too.

I went with my daughter to all of Maya's "Well-baby" appointments and I mentioned to the pediatrician at every examination things I saw that didn't appear to be quite right with Maya but each time, the doctor seemed to just blow me off. Guess she figured I was just an old-school grandma who wasn't up to par with raising children today.

Finally, when Maya was about 18-19 months old, the doctor herself noticed a little of the variations I had been mentioning before and this time, she decided to have Maya's hearing tested. But more importantly, she referred Maya over to an agency in our area that evaluates babies, toddlers as well as older children for the possibility of developmental delays being present and that was the best thing ever that happened -for Maya -and for us too!

The agency sent a team of four specialists to evaluate Maya in our home setting and their determination, initially, was that she had developmental delays in several areas. Their recommendations hinged though on the results of the hearing test and when that came back (just like my non-scientific test had) that she showed no hearing problems, the immediately set up a program for her with a speech therapist as well as a behavior/play therapist. The people selected came to the home one day a week for roughly an hour at each visit by each therapist and they began working then with Maya to help her to overcome the developmental issues they had diagnosed.

These two individuals became from that point on two of the most important people in Maya's life as well as two very valued people to us as we watched them work -and work -with her to change the way her developmental process had been running.

Slowly, but surely, we began to see Maya emerging, learning, adapting to her surroundings, playing with toys in a productive manner and finally, after 8 months of the therapy, she said her first word too -and that word -"Two" which she pronounced as "T-chew!" This was in response to our asking her how old she was and then we would say "Two" and finally, when she was about 28 months old, she answered our question about her age and repeated it -several times -so we knew she was responding correctly.

From that point on, she began talking more and more -and learning more and more too! All kinds of things! By the time she had been "talking" for about four months, she was beginning to learn the alphabet -to say the letters as well as to identify them on sight too. And she started to learn the numbers and counting so by the end of that summer, she knew the complete alphabet, knew the numbers 1 thru 10 and even beyond those so she was counting to over 100 and could do it ascending as well as descending (counting backwards, ya know).

Needless to say, we were ecstatic! But she still hadn't been evaluated by a psychologist or a psychiatrist to determine if she was just developmentally delayed or if the basis for her issues stemmed from autism.

Finally, she was seen by a psychologist in our home and his determination was that she is yes, autistic, but is in the category of "PDD-NOS, high functioning." Once the diagnosis was made and it was official, the agency set about then to work with her in more specialized ways to help her to learn.

When Maya was 30 months old, her little brother, Kurtis, arrived on the scene and when he was about 6-7 months old and we began to notice many of the same attributes evident in him too -that we had seen in Maya -we notified the agency that we wanted an evaluation of him as early as possible so the same team who had initially evaluated Maya came out and did the same battery of tests on him then too.

One of those therapists told us the day they evaluated him that often they see parents who have a child with autism and suspect it being present in a younger child that the parents often tend to see things that aren't really there and that was what she thought was probably happening with us and Kurtis. That is until she and the others completed their tests and she told us then that in her professional opinion that we were correct in our thinking and it looked to her that most likely he would also be diagnosed as autistic too. So, we were not in the least surprised then when the psychologist did his evaluation of Kurtis and gave us the diagnosis -making it official -that yes, Kurtis too had autism. His official diagnosis differed from his sister's though in that he was diagnosed as being "Classic Autism."

Now people around us -friends, family, members of our church, often upon learning that not only had Maya been diagnosed as autistic but also her little brother too -would often tell us how sad that must be, how difficult it had to be to get such terrible news.

And let me tell you this now -for once and for all -yes, I would much rather have not had this diagnosis put on my two little grandchildren but it changes nothing whatsoever in how I view either of them, how much I love and adore them for who they are regardless of the autism factor.

All the autism means -to me -is that they learn in a manner different from the way you and I learn things. But learn -oh my -that they do and they do it in spades too sometimes too!

When Maya was three, the agency said she was eligible for us to enroll her in a special pre-school program they have available and the choice was ours whether we wanted to send her there or not. Because of some of her particular quirks, her level of maturity at that time, we decided not to send her to that school program then but rather waited until the fall when she was almost four to enroll her in that program. And for her, that was the right move.

With Kurtis, when he turned three and the same offer was made for him to be enrolled in that program, we decided to send him beginning when he was 38 months old and he has blossomed with that pre-school training!

He had no vocabulary at all at the time we sent him to this program almost a year ago and today, you can't imagine how vocal he is! True, because he does have some speech issues, it can at times be difficult to understand what it is he is trying to say, but overall, he does very well much of the time in speaking, in getting his point across now.

They both have their own little quirks but don't we all?

Maya often obsesses about some things so we have to pay particular attention to that aspect with her. Kurtis has his things that still often frighten him -sometimes they come up unexpectedly and we learn about a new fear of us -but for the most part, they are either on the decline or we have or are learning new ways to work around them with him.

Would I trade either of these sweet children though for children who would be classified though as neuro-typical -or in common terms "normal?"

Not on your life!

Would I rather neither of them had autism -well, certainly -but that comes not from the fact that I would prefer they not be considered to be something strange, weird or whatever other label some might attach to them simply because they don't understand (and in some cases, perhaps don't even want to understand) these kids.

Yes there are times when it can be utterly frustrating to cope with either of them much less both of them. But then too, can't it also be equally frustrating in dealing with any six-year-old or four-year-old too? The main difference between Maya and Kurt and other children is the way they each process things differently from other kids the same age as they are. It isn't that they can't do the same things but they do need more assistance in many aspects to learn how to do things we tend to take for granted in children and the way they learn.

They are active kids -boy, are they ever! They are vocal and yes, sometimes the volume of their voice can be a bit overwhelming -to us, and especially to those who are unaware that they have issues.

In so many aspects though they are exactly like other children of the same age group and do the same things too which can also create problems at times because of various behavior patterns. It can be hard, can be confusing for us to determine if a behavior set one or both may exhibit is "normal behavior" or is it something coming through from the autism. Therefore, there are times when the type of discipline one must administer with them has to be chosen carefully so they can understand then too that some behaviors are not acceptable. It can be really hard then because if you believe all their actions are totally stemming from the autism factor and then, as a result, you don't discipline them for poor behaviors, you run the risk of allowing them way too much latitude and laxity then which could result in behaviors being continued that others would then interpret as them simply being spoiled little brats. Hard choices there at times to find ways to get the point across that some behaviors simply will not be tolerated and getting that point across is probably the hardest one for us to deal with most of the time.

As a result, we try to put the same rules and regulations on them as we would on any other child of the same age. It is a challenge to find ways to get that point across but it is something that is important not just for us in helping them but for them, in learning how best to ultimately help themselves too.

I realize too that as a family unit, we are very fortunate in that they are both quite high functioning and that there are others with autistic children who aren't in the same classification there. But then too, each of us -regardless of whether a child (or adult) is on the spectrum or not -is still an individual who has the right to learn by whatever method works the best for each person and to be treated with respect in the learning process.

The other day, Kurtis had come to me when he was ready for bed but not quite ready to settle down and wanted me to hold him, to snuggle and cuddle him. When he did that, it set off a bit of sibling rivalry then with Maya as she too then wanted the same treatment from Gram.

This picture is what happened then and how we -or rather I -ended up resolving that issue.

Would you have reacted any differently?

Or is there anything any better than having your grandchildren want to curl up in your lap and be hugged, cuddled, snuggled and shown that way how much they are loved -equally?

If There's Anything Better...

I had big plans for my day, for my time, on Friday -Good Friday, that is.

Walking Sammy, my mind was off and running with all kinds of ideas for not just one, but for several posts.

One was to do with the day -Good Friday -and that, in connection with the "Only the Good Friday" posts I try to participate in.

I was thinking about the religious aspect of the day -Good Friday -and how this day in the church calendar -so somber, so sacred too -became known as Good Friday when, it would seem to many who don't understand the true meaning of why we consider this to be such a holy day how the death of Christ on the Cross could be referred to when remembering this day as something good.

But it is a good day, in essence, for an Christendom as Christ's death 2000 years ago on the Cross signifies that he gave his life, God gave his only Son for us, to die for us that our sins would then be forgiven.

How then can this day NOT be Good Friday? What other event in history is as meaningful then than this gift to us from our Savior?

So yes, this is indeed not just "Good Friday" but perhaps it should be referred to as the "Best Friday" for such a sacrifice having been given for us on this day, above all others.

And yes, I think too it is truly something that should be for Only the Good Friday too, don't you?
(And yes, I know I'm almost two days late in writing this and my only excuse is to use that old adage about the best laid plans of mice and men, ya know, but my intent was to post this on Friday, on Good Friday, no less.)

Now, remember I was thinking about this for my Only the Good Friday post and when I got home, since I had the afternoon pretty much free then, I started going down my reader to try to get up-to-date with my blog reading and in the process, one of my favorite bloggers, Suldog, had a new post up in conjunction with Good Friday too. You really do have to read what Jim had to say about this day!

Truthfully, Jim's theory about Good Friday and mine run pretty much along the same plane. Although I have to say I don't know that I would word it quite like he did in his post but the intent he has in mind and mine do intertwine there. Maybe I should have warned anyone before they go click in to Jim's post that you kind of have to know how he writes, know a little bit about his sense of humor as well as his underlying principles too so that you aren't caught way off guard about how he words his beliefs there.

I suppose to some Jim's words might possibly come across as a bit of sacrilege, but trust me too when I tell you this, that you might have to follow him a bit more to get his full meaning there and he's not intending to be offensive but rather to show -in his own inimitable style -what this day does mean to him.

So keep that in mind, please -and read it, see for yourselves then -as I think he said it pretty darned succinctly.

And so, better late than never, this then is my post for Only the Good Friday.

Sneak Attack

The other morning, I was sitting at the dining room table, eating breakfast with Kurtis, when I happened to look out the window and to my surprise, I saw the ladder that Bill still had leaning against the house moving.

What the heck was going on? I glanced out the kitchen window expecting to see the tree branches swaying that would indicate maybe a good wind blowing that was making the ladder move like that but, it was more than obvious that there wasn't even the tiniest of breezes going.

So what was it then making that ladder move back and forth? I was intrigued, to say the least.

I got up and looked out the back door and got a surprise at our new outdoor décor.

There was our simple-minded Tom-kitten, Fluff-nuts, up almost on the top rung of that ladder and meowing for all he was worth too!

When I told Mandy about this, she didn't believe me, until yesterday when she was doing laundry and hanging clothes out on the line and I saw the stupid cat up there again. This time though, he lost his balance and good darned thing cat's are supposed to have nine lives or land on their feet when they fall, because fall he did! And once back on the ground, he just sort of shook himself off and wobbled off, unharmed.

Today though, Mandy glanced out the window while we were busy getting things ready for our day-early Easter family dinner and spied not Fluff-nuts up on the ladder but this time it was Chino.

Now she's a bit more pushy about getting her wishes known and judging by the look on her face, she definitely wanted to be anywhere but where she was.

That's why Mandy took this picture of her perched on the ladder and if her look says anything, I think she's trying to tell us to get her the hell off this damned thing, don't you?
You can bet your bottom dollar she wasn't saying "Happy Easter" but I am!

Prowling Around in Peale!

Yesterday, I took Sammy for the big long walk down to Peale -the ghost coal mining town down the road from my house. Round trip, the walk was 3.9 miles, which of course, I'm gonna round off to say it was a 4-mile walk. Makes sense to me, anyway.

And, if you recall I wrote about that and also, about how my camera got dropped and bounced on the ground which, in turn, sort of smooshed the lens in a bit. I still have not had any success in finding some place that does camera repairs -specifically on Kodak Digital cameras -so I'm still looking, still hoping too that one will turn up someplace.

But I did have some good things that happened from that walk and picture taking event. I was able to download the pictures I took yesterday, plus a few others too from last week, to my computer. So, I decided then I could do the post I had hoped to do yesterday and give you a little bit of a tour of Peale -our own little ghost town here.
Technically, this picture is not of Peale but rather is a view from the end of our street looking over at the mountainside in what is called "Cooper Two" and is of the mine reclamation project work ongoing there. The beige colored portion is where they have filled in and bulldozed the mountain to pretty much its original contours and this also shows approximately where the old Boney Pile (or slag pile or Tipple -pick your choice of what you want to call it or what you know that as) used to be and which is now completely covered over.
As we started down the dirt road into Peale, Sammy was quite taken (as was I) by the sight of dandelions already blooming all over along the roadside. (Today, we walked up the road behind my house into the Dobry Town section of town and Maya was equally fascinated by these little yellow flowers and picked a nice little bouquet of nine dandelions -one for each kitten she says.)
This is the first little bridge one comes to when entering Peale and the little stream that runs under it -Moravian Run -is the stream that runs through the middle of Grassflat. However, since it has long been polluted by the mines as well as people who drained their septic systems or other wastes from their homes directly into it, no one around here ever calls it by its correct name. Rather, this rill is known as the "Sulfur Creek" to I think everyone around town here.
This picture and the photo directly below here are new items -to me anyway -having been erected along the roadside as you go into Peale since the last time I was down there.
Both of these young men -as well as one other guy -were killed at this point in the road while riding ATVs over Labor Day Weekend of 2008. There were four ATVs involved and two going east met two going west on Peale Road in a horrific crash which killed them. The one ATV had a passenger -the lady who used to live next door to me -and fortunately for her, she was thrown clear of the bulk of the wreckage and had no major injuries.
Just a few yards on down the road, at a little offroad, is yet another memorial that also has been erected fairly recently. This one is for a young man (father of two small children) who took his own life down in Peale last year. Suicide is a terrible thing to contemplate and to take one's own life at such a young age, with small children being left fatherless, makes it even harder to cope with for those left behind in the wake. At least, that is how I view it. And I think regardless of the problems he may have had, did taking his own life really cure all those ills?
This is just a clearing behind where the young man died and which is used for target practice by some of the local hunters in the area. It's hard now to believe that once upon a time -like about 100 years ago or so -there were houses standing in this spot, and for that matter, all along this road too. Many of the houses were dismantled and moved, piece by piece, up to Grassflat when the mines in Peale died out -including even two churches that once had been in Peale which were moved out that way and re-erected in Grassflat.
This is the view of the hillside along the right-hand side of the road, looking down into Moravian Run, as it runs through the gully below the road. The hillside along here on this side is quite steep in many places and there's no way I would even think of trying to venture down into the woods there for a better picture or anything for fear I would slip and slide on some of the leaves that have built up there over the years and have a big long, really bumpy slide down to the foot of the mountainside there. This side of the road looks considerably different today though than it did when I was growing up as back then, many locals used this as their private dumping spot and for the entire length of the road where it has the dropoff, almost straight down, the amount of litter and the items disposed of here too made this area look absolutely terrible and disgusting. Thankfully, it has been cleaned up over the years but what a job that had to have been to clean up old furniture, appliances, car parts, and just the usual run-of-the-mill garbage that people used to dump there was incredible and a huge, huge mess for many years.
I'm not sure if the area here in the lighter color -kind of cleared -is what remains of the old sidewalk or pathway that ran along the upper side of the road and in front of the houses that were situated there years ago or if it is perhaps the old road into Peale which was rebuilt some years back and widened a little bit then in the process. It looks like it would be kind of inviting to walk along this pathway, to maybe get a closer look at where the houses once stood and maybe even find some of the old foundations then too. Who knows what "treasures" one might find if you could locate and explore the old foundations? But I know one thing for sure, if ever I were to do some exploring like that, this would be the time of year I'd consider doing that -before the snakes all come out of hiding there! (The area is known for an abundance of both rattlers and copperheads. Not two of my favorite living things, for sure!)
As you go down the hill into Peale, around an S-curve, you come to this road that veers off to the left and winds up a hill. This road takes you up to the area where there used to be a park, as well as the company store and even a brick-lined swimming pool! Yep! Believe it or not, years ago Peale was quite the lovely little boom town with many amenities for that era too!
And this my friends, is the last house standing now in Peale! There was another house -a nice big white place that was right beside this place but it burned completely to the ground a few years back. A lovely act of arson that was. And what a shame, what a loss -not just to the people who owned that place and used as a camp, but also to the community at large as it was irreplaceable in terms of historic value, although apparently the arsonist didn't see its value in that light.
This shot -taken from the Peale Road overlooks from one mountain side to another and the ghost town that was known at the turn of the 20th century as Peale lay in the valley and all along both hillsides there. I think it's such a beautiful view to stand on this road and be able to look over at the other mountainside and try to envision the homes that once were scattered all around this region as well as the people who hurried about doing their daily chores in their homes and for the men, how they labored long and hard under the surfaces around these mountains to dig out that black gold, the coal, in the many seams there.

Now remember I said at the beginning of this post that this walk amounted to 4 miles, round trip. Well, imagine if you will that down in Peale, right before where the last house there still is standing, when I was growing up there was another house there too and there was even a family still residing there then as well. The youngest child in that family -a girl 3 years younger than me had to walk from down in Peale up to the end of the street where I live -almost 2 miles from her home to that point -and there, she was picked up by a guy, hired by the school board to drive her then the rest of the distance up to the school house here in town. A good hike that was from where I lived to the school house so had she had to walk the entire distance from her house to the school, I would estimate it would have been a walk of about 3 miles, one way!

Anyway you cut it, that walk sure would have been just as effective I bet as it would be to take herbal weight loss pills today. Maybe even way more effective for all I know. And you can bet your bottom dollar though that's something I wouldn't care to do any real life comparisons of either method though, would you?

I'm just grateful that I wasn't the one who had to make that long walk just to meet up with my ride to get to and from school every day! (And then, when that family finally moved out of Peale around 1957-58, they moved into a house at the other end of Grassflat, which still entailed a walk of well over a mile, one way, for that little girl to get to school every day!

And kids today think they have it rough when they walk out of their houses and have to go a distance of not even the length of a football field to their bus stops and then get to ride the distance to our local school. (Of course, our local school today is about 6-7 miles from where I live so I wouldn't want to have to walk that to get to school either -for darned sure!)

And there you have it -a little visual tour of the west side of Peale. One of these days -if I ever get my camera fixed or manage to get a new one -I'll take another jaunt down to Peale and take you around to show you the cemetery as well as the bridge over the Red Moshannon that cuts Peale in half -with half being in Centre County and the other half in Clearfield County.

There's not much to see there today -mostly just trees and a few little landmarks most of which are known only now to the hunters who frequent that area every fall in search of turkey, pheasant, rabbits, squirrels, deer and yes, even some nice big black bears that still inhabit the area.

Just Joking Around

How many of you got pranked today in honor of the big holiday -April Fool's Day? How many of you pulled off a great April Fool's Day joke on someone?

I used to try to figure out things to do for April Fool's Day stunts and such, but for some reason or other -maybe I was just finally reaching maturity or something like that -I've had no impetus whatsoever for probably about 10 years -at least -to do anything like that.

So if I tell you here that I'm looking into Relacore you're liable to think I'm going back to my second childhood or something. But really, I'm not.

Although, there is a part of me that sometimes does long for the days when my friends -co-workers, mainly -and I used to labor long and hard to figure out a great plan to put into play to prank someone on April Fool's Day.

Today though -I think I'll walk Sammy! And that's no joke either!

Crud Removal?

It's been a bit of a rough patch for me for the past almost two weeks now.

It started two weeks ago this Friday coming with a sore throat -really scratchy -and I thought, rats -another head cold on the way.

By the next day though, the sore throat was gone but the sinus was totally wacking out. However, no watery eyes that would indicate the eminent onslaught of the yucky head cold. Just the sinus draining from my nose and down my throat.

What I did end up with though was a really yucky, nasty croupy sounding cough even though I was taking cold meds meant to deal with the cough and chest congestion as well as nasal congestion.

Then, lo and behold -the eyes began to bug me too. But not watering like head colds make 'em do. No, instead they were itching like crazy! And from my rubbing them -wow, puffy and really very unattractive for sure. I was beginning to think then that maybe I need to do an eye cream review to search for something that might at least relieve the swollen appearance there.

Finally, yesterday -in desperation (the next step would have been a call to my doctor I suppose) I found some over-the-counter cold/flu liquid meds that were supposed to be "non-drowsy" cause during the day when Mandy is at work, the last thing I need is something that would run the risk of knocking me out, and I took some of that stuff.

No, it hasn't cured what ails me -not quite that great -but be darned if it didn't relieve the congestion in my nose and the cough a good bit and yes, the eyes even quit itching too. And that, in turn, relieved the swelling around them.

Good move, I'd say -especially for some generic stuff, which was what this stuff I took is.

All's well that ends well too, isn't it?

Aiming for Confusion

Boy, what a morning this has been.

Mandy had an early morning appointment in Philipsburg so I had to get up a tad earlier than usual so as to be awake and aware of what Kurtis was up to as well as getting him ready to leave for his pre-school program too.

Some days, he gets up, comes downstairs all bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and friendly.

Other days, not so much.

Guess what kind of day this was?

Anything directed towards him received only one answer. NO. Sometimes, I could have sworn he had that in BOLD CAPS and with a bunch of exclamation points behind the word too! (Maybe he is learning punctuation from reading Grammy's blog and my overuse of the punctuation point. Do ya think that might be it?)

Anyway, he was miserable, contrary and any other word you can think of that means that stuff.

In a bit of a fit of frustration, I wasn't saying just "ugh" under my breath about him but adding other consonants to describe my sentiment -like maybe having my own word, ya know -something like this -hgh -to mean ugh but of a higher variation.

Wanna get dressed, Kurtis? Answer - No.
Wanna eat? -Answer - NO.
Want some milk? - Answer- NO!
Sheesh, what the heck do you want anyway?

I was getting concerned when he had a bit of a hissy fit about getting dressed, then cried while munching down a couple of dry cheerios (his standard breakfast fare) and I thought he's gonna really be contemptible about getting on the van now.

However, the van was a tad late arriving so I took him outside to wait there for it to show up -hoping that the fresh air, sunshine, pleasant temperatures might warm his soul -and his personality -up just a bit.

FINALLY! The van pulled up and his attitude changed almost immediately then to his sweet, sunny little self as he trotted up the sidewalk, the steps and hopped up inside into the carseat and no fussing, let me strap him in. Meanwhile, I was telling the van driver that because he had been really miserable most of the morning, that she might want to warn his teacher, Miss Carrie, about this factor.

All buckled in, I asked him for a hug and a kiss and right away, he gave me one of each. Then. almost as a reflex -or perhaps his form of an apology -he lifted up his little face and gave me another kiss -and a great big hug too then! WOW -a double bonus there, ya know.

I asked him if he was gonna be a good boy, have a fun day at school and he even responded to that. Sure it was nothing other than pure ecolalia, I know that, but still, he repeated "Be good boy. Have fun." Then, he said "Bye bye" -no coaxing on that one. I repeated that back to him and he said it again only on the second time, the right hand went out and he was totally pushing me out of the van, as if to say "Enough now, Gram. Good bye. I'm leaving! Love you though!"

Now I ask you -how sweet is that? Really?

He's a little gem, that's for sure!

Catastrophe!!!

Today, it was so nice -and boy, I do mean NICE -sunny, bright, warm and temps at this hour still hovering around 64 degrees F, so Sammy and went for a long walk today.

I hooked the little pedometer that Mandy bought (for who, I have no idea as she hasn't used it) and away we went.

We walked down to the ghost town of Peale -a distance according to my trusty little measuring device, of 3.9 miles (round trip) and for my purposes, I find that figure close enough to 4 so I am rounding it off to say that we walked 4 miles, round trip.

I took my trusty little M853 Kodak digital camera with me and took a goodly number of photos too of various points along our walk and I had planned to put them up on this post this evening.

But alas, that plan has come to a rapid end and hence, the title of this post -"Catastrophe!"

Unfortunately, as we neared the home front, I stopped and took aim with the little camera and just as I clicked the shutter, Sammy -ever the really bright dog, ya know (NOT) decided that was a good time to jerk on his lease and try to move around a bit.

That one little jerk of his lease caused me to lose my hold on the camera and it slipped out of my hand, landing along the side of the road.

I thought when it landed that perhaps all would be okay as it didn't seem to land with a thud or a crack -kind of soft landing you could say -but that, apparently would be incorrect.

When I picked the camera up, I realized that the lens that slides in and out when you turn the camera on and off, seems to have been jarred a bit and is now jammed on the one side in an untenable position where I can't figure out anyway to try to prod it into sliding back into the case or going out into the full position it was in as I snapped that last photo.

So now, I am back to square one with the camera situation in my life! And trust me, this rally annoys me greatly as I had come to really enjoy the ease of putting my camera in my purse, sliding it into a pocket and away I would go, ready to aim and shoot at a moment's notice.

After I got home, I went online to the Kodak site to see if it offered any suggestions either as to how to maybe do a self-repair job (if possible) or, where I could maybe take the camera to have it looked and and possibly fixed.

Boy, what a joke that turned out to be!

It says on Kodak's website that any repairs should be done by an "authorized" Kodak Repair Center but be darned if I can find anything online that shows where those repair centers might just be located!

Of course, considering where I live -out in the boondocks, ya know, of central Pennsylvania -130 miles from Pittsburgh; 180 miles from Erie; 130 miles from Scranton; 120 miles from Harrisburg and probably about 200 miles from Philadelphia -all the major cities in the state -I doubt there is anyplace relatively close to my home where I can take this sweet little red camera that I so love to see if it is even repairable!

So now I'm thinking I suppose I will have to dip into my little slush fund I've been saving from the little bit of extra money I earn online from time to time and use that to get myself another camera. I'm thinking maybe one along the same lines as the one I purchased in February that my older daughter and my son went in on the purchase price of a nice M340 digital camera that we gave Mandy for her birthday. It's the same size as the camera I had that I had purchased a little over 2 years ago this past Christmas but her camera has 10.2 megapixels whereas my camera I believe only had 8.0 on it.

Maybe, if I'm really lucky, I can get a camera like Mandy's for the same sale price as the one we got her too.

Maybe, if I am really, really lucky, and I get myself another nice, new, little digital model, I will use a neck strap on the next one and not rely solely on my hand to keep a camera from falling and being hurt like I managed to do with this one.

Now, before I close this post, just one more thing here. If you recall, I think I mentioned in my last post about the accident at the Red Moshannon Canoe/Kayak Races this past Saturday that started at the bridge in Peale (the Ghost Town) and ended at the bridge at the foot of Cooper Mountain -at the point where the Red Moshannon converges with the Black Moshannon.

Anyway, after this race having been in existence for 43 years this year and though there have been some spills and close calls there from time to time, sadly this year's race ended on a very sad note as one participant, George H. Lockey Jr., from Kylertown, died yesterday -March 30th -at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center after having been flipped from his kayak and found, floating past the bridge on Rte. 53 where a bystander pulled him from the water and began CPR, etc. on him at that time.

For anyone who reads my blog because they are looking for things about the Red Mo Race, I am therefore posting the obituary for George that was in today's edition of The Progress, the daily newspaper from Clearfield, PA.

George H. Lockey Jr.
MORRISDALE -- Mass of Christian Burial for George H. Lockey Jr., 62, of Morrisdale will be

celebrated Tuesday, April 6, 2010 at 11 a.m. at St. Severins Roman Catholic Church,

Drifting, with the Father David Perry as celebrant. Mr. Lockey died Tuesday, March 30, at

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh.

Interment will be at st. Severins Roman Catholic Cemetery, Drifting.

Friends will be received Monday, April 5, from 6-9 p.m. at Johnson Funeral Home, Grassflat.

The rosary will be recited at 5:45 p.m. and a vigil at 6 p.m. both Monday, April 5, at the

funeral home.

Military honors will be accorded at the church by members of the Moshannon Valley

independent Honor Guard.

Born Oct. 21, 1947, at Philipsburg, he was the son of Vera Denochick Lockey of Allport and

the late George H. Lockey.

Mr. Lockey was a member of St. Severins Roman Catholic Church.

He was a lieutenant in the District of Columbia Fire Department Hazmat Unit from which he

retired in 1993 after more than 20 years of service.

He was a Vietnam-era Army Vetera.

Mr. Lockey was an avid outdoorsman, hunter, fisherman and Geocacher.

He loved working in the maintenance of the Quehanna Trails.

Mr. Lockey was a member of the Cooper Township Planning Commission.

On June 21, 1969, at St. Severins Roman Catholic Church, he wed Sharon harvey Lockey, who

survives in Morrisdale.

In addition, he is survived by a son, Jason Scott Lockey and his wife, Shelly, of

Mechanicsville, MD; a granddaughter, Gillian; and a sister, Vera Ann Lockey of Lanse.

Mr. Lockey was preceded in death by his father.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial contributions be in the form of Mass cards.

There will be a luncheon in the church social hall after the Mass.

Rest in peace, George. At least you were able to leave this earth doing something you loved to do -being outdoors, canoeing with the best of 'em!

And to Sandy and his son and family -my condolences in your loss and you will be in my prayers.

Rebirth

There is an event that takes place about a mile or two -probably more like 3 miles perhaps -from my home every year, on the last Saturday of March and it's something that really brings the old village to life!

It's a canoe/kayak race on the stream that runs through the ghost town of Peale down in the woods here!

This race has been happening for I think forty plus years now if I'm not mistaken and it's become really popular and quite well known too. It's one of the better white water races at least in the eastern part of the United States, for sure.

It begins at the bridge in Peale that crosses over the Red Moshannon Creek and proceeds seven miles downstream to the bridge at the foot of Cooper Mountain on Route 53 where the Red Moshannon and the Black Moshannon streams converge and from there, the water goes on to the West Branch of the Susquehanna River.

The son of my neighbors and good friends has taken part in many, many of these events and this past Saturday was no different. As I was coming home from helping at a funeral dinner at our church, I saw the neighbors' son pulling away from his parents home and motioned to him to pull off for a minute so I could find out how he made out this year.

No big surprise to me when he said he'd taken Second Place! So congratulations to you -Howie Pillot -for another race well done!

This year though the race came very close to having a tragedy as one of the participants had his canoe flip on him near the finish line and he was seen floating in the water near the bridge. Someone on the sidelines managed to pull him out and began doing CPR on him and the local EMTs and other emergency personnel were notified. Initially, he was taken to a local hospital and from there transferred to Pittsburgh to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The reports from the local newspaper today say he is in critical condition there. (I was going to link this to the story from the local paper but they don't have archives in place to my knowledge on their website so the story would end up being replaced tomorrow.)

Anyway, the racer involved was George Lockey, a 62-year-old man from Kylertown, a little village about 4 miles from where I live. George is a retired firefighter from Washington, D.C. and since moving back to his (and his wife's) home area, he's been really active in many events of the outdoor variety, especially hiking through many of the forest areas in about a 3-4 county radius. He also is an excellent photographer and has a portfolio of many, many woodland scenes of this region as well as some really outstanding pictures of wildlife in the region too -especially of some of the rattlesnakes he has encountered in his hikes.

I wish I could find his website with his photography posted there so everyone could see some of the fantastic pictures he has taken and also, as a way to show folks the beauty of this region. Words really don't do it justice but George's pictures do just that!

So please, say some prayers for George that he has a full and speedy recovery and also for his wife, Sharon, and their family as they go through the waiting process at the hospital.

(If anyone reading this is on Facebook, you can access a fan page about the Red Moshannon Race via Facebook and see some of the terrific photos posted over this past weekend of various racers running the rapids on this race.)

Back to Basics

After last week and all kinds of things going on around here, a lot of stuff got shoved off, not done, routines -what few I had -went you know where in a hand basket!

But tonight, I just came back in from taking Sammy out for a really quick walk (hey, it was nippy out there although the moonlight was beautiful) and I took him for one of our regular longer walks earlier today too. The walk thing, with Sammy, is something I'm trying to make as one of the kind of daily deal type of thing, not just for him, but for me. I really do need to follow through on this for myself to try to keep up the calorie burning and get my legs more accustomed to walking, more and more now, as the weather gets nicer, warmer and such.

On our walk earlier today, I saw one of the big signs of spring sprouting up along a small wooded area we go past -good old dandelions blooming! A month or two from now I'll probably be cursing them but today, they looked really nice with that pretty little bit of yellow peeking above the leaves!

Last week was a really rough week for me and also for Kurtis as we both got hit with pretty much the same "bug." I don't know if mine was allergies, hay fever kind of stuff, or if it was a nasty old sinus infection, but it wasn't your run-of-the-mill type of head cold, that much is for certain. Kurtis does have allergy issues so we blame that for a lot of his ailments that affect his sinus passages. Poor little guy was all stuffed up and the junk was draining like crazy apparently down his throat too, same as with mine, so we both ended up with really bad, yucky, croupy type coughs then too. I think mine is finally coming under control now as I got myself medicated with some good old Mucinex DM pills as well as a big bottle of cough medicine to try to calm the coughing down to a dull roar and it seems to be doing just that now. Finally!

Mandy did get a call Friday from the pediatric neurologist at Geisinger Medical Center -where we had to take Kurtis on Thursday for an EEG (brain wave test, ya know) and he informed her that nothing out of the ordinary showed up on Kurt's test so guess we don't have to worry now about seizures and/or epilepsy or anything of that nature. So that's a big relief, for sure.

I decided last week against setting up a team again this year to participate in the Autism Walk over at the University. My kids and I had a team in honor of both Kurt and Maya for the past three years but this year, I really don't feel up to all that is required for participating plus, Mandy has to work the day of the walk this year so I would probably have had to take both the kids with me if we'd done the walk. It's only about 1 and 3/4 miles in all, but I know Kurtis wouldn't be able to handle that much distance and there's just no way I could manage to push him in a stroller that would be large enough for him to fit into now either.

So, with all that in mind, our team is taking a breather this year from that event. But to anyone who reads my blog and who supported us in the past, you can always make a contribution if you so desire to the general fund for the Autism Speaks walk. It is for a very good cause, no two ways about that.

I still have not been able to reach the surgeon I had for my last surgery three years ago this past October down in Pittsburgh so don't know what the heck to do because the local surgeons don't want to mess with the hernia surgery around my colostomy since none of them did the initial surgery. I think I'm just gonna call the OB/GYN doctor here and tell her of the problem I'm experiencing, give her the doctor in Pittsburgh's number and see if she can elicit a response from him. I'm not in any rush to go under the knife for any of this but I suppose it is better if things get put into motion to get something set up. That way, Mandy and I would have time to better get things organized with the kids, her work schedule and such, ya know.

Other than that, things have been pretty much running status quo with me just falling a bit behind last week is all. The rain, Kurt's doctor's appointments, Mandy's return from Nevada and such and what little bit of a schedule or routine I had sort of went out the window, big time.

But now, I'm resolving to get back on track -back to those basics of routines I had in place -or at least somewhat so, anyway!

Better get as much walking done as I can before those old April showers take over and keep me -and Sammy -inside again.

Fright Night!!!

Phew! Right now, I'm breathing one really, really big sigh of relief.

But since about 9 p.m. tonight, I was really on edge, nervous, okay, face it, I was downright petrified!

Why?

Because something was wrong with my computer! That's why!

What happened, we aren't entirely sure, but I was about at my wit's end, for sure.

A little after 9 p.m., Mandy sat down to use the computer and when she tried to log into her facebook account, she couldn't enter her password. Absolutely could not type it in. Although the cursor was blinking, if she tried to type in her password, nothing happened except the screen would change to reflect the computer's history. Go figure now, how would or could that happen, huh?

So she asked me what was wrong and being the computer whiz that I am not, I had nary a clue.

So I thought maybe there was something wrong and the innards was full of dust, ya know. I had asked Mandy a while back to pick up a can of that stuff you can spray around to clear out dust accumulations so I got that out, removed the side panel and sprayed away. Yeah, not proud of this but there WAS a lot of yucky dust in there.

Okay. Got that cleared out, panel re-inserted and time to test this puppy again but still nothing.

I clicked on my e-mail and was going to see if it was working and it downloaded what new e-mail I had okay. So I thought I would try opening a new message and see if I could send it to a friend who has helped me through some issues in the past but when I tried to type in the title of my note, nothing.

Seemed the keyboard was being obstinate and weird -as well as Firefox and Facebook.

So then I thought well, maybe somehow the keyboard had been accidentally disconnected, ya know. So I moved everything around the tower, went to move the tower out to check the back connections and the computer shut off on me.

So then I went through all the outlets into the surge protector to see if they were all plugged in completely (a few months back, Sammy -the dog -had accidentally bumped the connections, knocking them loose and that had created some issues for me then) and I checked all the connections into the back of the computer itself and one of them apparently had been pulled out just a tad so I got that re-connected, power re-established, etc., but still -no change to the way the computer was operating.

Now, as I said above, the last thing in the world I am is computer savvy about the innards of this thing or anything that is really the least bit technical. But I was on a mission tonight to see if I could do anything to get this sucker up and functioning once again. It had been working fine about an hour before Mandy had decided to log it, so what the heck could have happened to it in that amount of time with no one playing on it?

I did the disc cleanup -which, with Windows XP takes what seems like FOREVER to do its thing. After that, I did a defrag -another clean-up thing that also is slower than freaking molasses in January too. Those done, I then got Firefox to open and managed to get to a bookmark where I had a link saved to Micro Trend Anti-Virus (freebie thing, ya know) and I was able to click that open, click on to download the program thinking maybe I'd been hit by some kind of virus or some such that my regular anti-virus program hadn't picked up on.

I was in the process of watching the anti-virus program do its scan -which was roughly by then almost 3 hours after Mandy had first begun having problems with this puppy -when I happened to glance down at the keyboard and noticed the the "ctrl" key to the right side of the space bar appeared to be depressed so, on a lark, I touched that key and it popped back up (after I toyed with it briefly).

The anti-virus program ran, finished up, telling me I had one (1) threat -some spyware -which I clicked to have that fixed and after all that, then I re-opened Firefox and went to my bookmark for Facebook.

I clicked on Mandy's code there. It asked for her password which I was able to provide and this time, it let me type the password in and presto magic, Facebook opened right up.

Will you look at that? I AM a computer whiz after all, aren't I?

After wasting (well, not really -as all the things I did really DID need to be done) roughly three hours, worrying myself sick thinking my baby, my computer, was sick and probably would need hospital care plus a lot of moola that, of course, I don't really have handy to get it functioning again, and apparently all that was wrong was that this particular "ctrl" key had been depressed and got stuck in that position!

Whatever it took there to get this thing up and running again, I'm just really ecstatic that by accident I just happened to see the key that looked like it was depressed and possibly stuck and that it was apparently the problem and all is fixed, up and running again.

Obviously so -huh, since I am sitting here, typing away and seeing the letters all appear before me on the screen.

Yeah, me -the computer whiz-kid! LOL

But we have decided to make sure Kurtis isn't near the keyboard at all because Mandy thinks he was squirming around, touching things while she was holding him and trying to sign in and that's how that key ended up getting depressed and locking up the keyboard for us, but good!

Now, I can go to bed, relax, rest, get a good night's sleep and not have nightmares about computer technicians doing heaven only knows what to my poor little computer to get it up and running again!

Or better yet -maybe I should just change my name to "Lucky!"

A Brief Respite

There have been a lot of things going on here in my home the past couple of weeks that were sort of a culmination of sorts of other things that had been happening for the past several months to even a couple of years.

I can't disclose everything that was going on but, if you've followed my blog for quite sometime now, you may recall I had posted a number of things here pertaining to someone in the house, in the family, who was really stirring the pot, big time, and not in a very good way. Definitely not in a manner that was financially helpful to the family unit, that much is for certain.

Now, as you may recall, last week my daughter took a short vacation out to Nevada to spend a few days visiting with her Dad. She hadn't seen him in two or three years so it was something she really wanted to do and when the opportunity presented itself, she jumped at it. I don't blame her at all for wanting to see him as all children -whether younguns or older, grown kids, should have the opportunity to be able to visit with their parents as often as is possible. Agreed?

Of course, her absence meant special arrangements were made for the two little ones here. Maya spent the time her Momma was away with a couple and their three teenage children who are all very close friends of Mandy's. Maya frequently spends an overnight or a weekend with them. She loves them dearly and they adore her.

I was "left" (so to speak) with the care of little Kurtis. This isn't as much of a hassle as some folks might think it would be given the fact that both Maya and Kurtis are autistic. Now, had I been left to be in charge of both the kids, by myself, for that length of time, I quite possibly would be bald today as the two of 'em together, with no other adult around to diffuse situations that arise with them, can be pretty hairy, to say the least. But separately, there was no sibling rivalry, no jealousy cropping up and Kurt tends to stay pretty calm, relatively quiet and laid back then when by himself.

Now, while my daughter was away though that meant that I also was put in the situation of having to contend, alone, on my own, with the two other people who live here and both of them sometimes tend to wear on my nerves.

Sometimes I can shake off the stuff the do -or don't/won't do -with only a little effort on my part.

Then there are times when I absolutely am about at my wits' end with one or both of them and am about to blow a major gasket.

This past Wednesday was one of those days!

Mandy had returned home late Tuesday evening and on Wednesday, she had to return to work. Which meant not only did I have Kurt and Maya to watch but also the other two here and both of them were really totally rubbing me the wrong way.

The teenager in the group is a senior in high school and as such, expects to graduate in June. That however, is somewhat a debatable thing as her grades leave much to be desired and as of a couple weeks ago she was failing GYM -which is by the way, a required subject too. Now how someone can fail gym was a bit beyond me especially when I learned it was because she wasn't coming to class prepared with the proper clothing! To flaunt the rules of the class in that manner to me is just totally mind-boggling! I realize that she is capable of passing the physical requirements and she thinks showing up, being able to do that should be adequate enough. For some reason or other, she must want to make a federal case of this or something to see how far she can push the envelope there, ya know.

She's also been soliciting all kinds of literature too from upteen different colleges, business schools and the like and yesterday, she mentioned she was in the process of applying to some school -don't know which one, didn't ask, didn't want to raise my blood pressure any more than it already was, ya know.

I mentioned to her to proceed with caution on the applications because more often than not, colleges also require an application fee -just to submit the application for their consideration -and money is something there is never an abundance of in this house, in this family. That plus my thoughts were whirling around about her grades, which as I said are not the best -not by a long shot -and why clog up an admissions officials already stuffed to the gills inbox with an application that in all probability will be turned down too -due to the lack of decent grades.

She then informed me that because she qualifies for the free lunch program in school, the guidance counselor told her that she can apply to any school she wants and they will waive any application fees then because of that! Therefore, she was going ahead and applying to whatever school it was that had caught her eye.

This from someone who thinks college is a cake walk, who hates to read textbooks, will not do anything in that respect unless ordered to do that and then, it is given a haphazard scan job in the reading area. Apparently the high school teachers today do not require that the kids actually read anything in the textbooks that we, the taxpayers provide for the kids and that all that is needed for study purposes are the notes the kid takes in class or the study sheets the teacher may hand out. Sheesh! Somehow I rather suspect if some college does accept her, she will have a very brief time there unless reading chapter after chapter after chapter suddenly becomes high on her "to do" list. But what the hell do I know about these things anyway? That's just how it was for me in college anyway -read, read, read and then, yeah -read some more!

Then -because these run-ins with the teenage really frustrate me immensely -I was already edgy as all get out when the other resident came home from work. And his appearance then and from his opening words, I could feel my blood pressure escalating yet again.

Seems he was feeling a bit "under the weather" and that tends to make him more than a bit on the whiny side, which in turn, just irks the living daylights out of me because his complaints tend to be rather nondescript, very general, very vague and also, border on the kind of things that most people would take the attitude to just suck it up and deal with it!

And feeling as I did then, about to implode momentarily, I told him that I had to go see a friend who lives up the hill from us and I left the house -leaving him in charge!

And, I had lied about the friend I said I had to go see. I just had to leave or I might have done something really drastic if I'd stayed in the house any longer last night!

I drove around thinking initially I would stop and talk to my son and his girlfriend but that didn't work out as they weren't home. So I drove a little farther, thinking of where I might go, if there was someone else I could go see that I could let all this pent-up anger and all kinds of other emotions inside of me out and free.

And, I realized I was about a mile or two away from the home of a lady who, along with her late husband, had been part of a circle of friends my ex-husband and I had been part of many years ago so I drove by her place, saw the lights were on and knew she was at home and that's where I ended up then.

And boy, am I ever glad I did that!

From the moment I walked in and she asked what I was doing out and about and I told her I needed to talk to someone that I could talk freely with, that I could rant and bitch and cuss like a sailor or whatever, drink some coffee with and smoke cigarettes like crazy too if I wanted and she laughed, telling me I had indeed, come to the right place!

And yep, that I had!

When I left there about 2 hours later, I felt so refreshed, so ready to not pay a whit of attention to the two in the house that tend to annoy me greatly at times and I came home almost a new person, you might say.

I beat Mandy home by about maybe 5 or 10 minutes and when she came in and I told her where I'd been -and why -she gave me a great big hug and told me she was so happy I'd found an avenue to let loose, to get rejuvenated, ya know!

Then, Thursday Mandy and I had to take Kurtis to Danville, to the Geisinger Medical Center where he was scheduled to have an EEG done and then be seen by a pediatric neurologist after that. When we left, we were both edgy again because the other member of the family apparently wasn't going to go to work today. Hmmm. I'm wondering -as is Mandy -how long the employer he now has (since he had to disband his own operation as a "professional, self-employed businessman" within the past month) will contend with his inability to show up on a punctual basis and also, for five days running in each week too! His attendance doesn't hit me as one that will likely carry him very far in this job now if he keeps going like this.

But, though we were both upset by this turn of events with his not going to work, we took a bit of comfort in the fact that we were going to stop by where my older daughter lives and pick her up and she was going to go with us then to get Kurtis for his test and to see the doctor.

And that worked really well too as we had a great time together! We, all three of us, thoroughly enjoyed being with Kurtis, laughing at his antics, appreciating his sweet nature to the max. And with that, we were able then to back-burner the problems sure to be waiting us when we returned home -at least for about 5-6 hours anyway!

Although this post has some negativity in it and technically, to do a post and put it up as part of the "Only the Good Friday" posts, it doesn't fully qualify. But I'm going to do it anyway and take a bit of liberty with the "Only the Good" aspect as my escape to my old friend's house Wednesday night and the relief that gave me along with the sheer enjoyment of spending a day with both my daughters and my little sweetheart, Kurtis, was all nothing BUT good for me!

And a little bit of good can sometimes go a long, long way too, can't it?

It may not have been the vacation I talked about wanting the other day but it was as close to that in the refreshing of my body and soul as I could get right now and was just exactly what I needed!

On a Merry-Go-Round!

Ever feel like you are spinning away on a constant merry-go-round?

Boy, the past couple of days have been like that for me -or so it seemed anyway!

Between Mandy being away in Nevada for 5-6 days visiting with her dad and me being the one to oversee watching Kurtis, keeping what I could do to keep the place running semi-decently during that time, I really did get way, way behind in reading others blogs. I had been trying to keep things under control so that when I would try to read those posts I wouldn't be swamped with oodles of posts but somehow or other over the weekend, I lost control in that respect. Yes I did that -again!

By the time I sat down yesterday and tried to get the Reader cleared out I had almost 300 posts waiting for me to attend to and that my friends, is a tad overwhelming to see that much reading sitting there, just waiting! I thought I would never get that number whittled down but finally by late, late last night I had it down to about 8 posts that were left for me to read. I was beginning to think that everyone and their brother had put up new posts between midnight Saturday night and early Tuesday a.m. and that maybe I would put a request out on my blog for people to slow down a bit on the posting so I could catch up.

But I didn't do that and I'm not asking that today either. Well, okay -maybe just a little bit of a slow down perhaps? Nah. I just need to get my act together, organized and just do it! And I also need to apologize to for being this slow and uncoordinated about reading and commenting then too. I know, everyone does like to get comments because then you know that things are okay with other folks and your blog stuff is working pretty much the way it's supposed to do then too!

But let me tell you a bit about my little merry-go-round life the past week!

On Saturday, my daughter Carrie and her son -my "prince" Alex, came up for supper after we we went to the local high school to meet up with my son, his girlfriend and her daughter so we could all go see this year's production by the Drama Club of "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." In these hills, this is a big deal as our Drama Club really is -for a very small, rural school district -first rate! And this year, was no different from previous years in that the director and the kids really did shine in their production! Fantastic play, it was.

Aunt Carrie had wanted to take Maya with us to see the play so she had asked Jenn-Jenn, the lady with whose family Maya was staying while Mandy was away, if we could arrange to take Maya with us. However, Jenn had asked Maya what she wanted to do and Maya had decided she wanted to see the play on Saturday afternoon by attending with Jenn and her daughters instead of her going with us. And that was okay with us too -whatever would make Maya the most content is one of our mutual goals ya know.

But after they had gone to the play in the afternoon, Jenn decided to bring Maya down so that she could spend a little time with Aunt Carrie and her cousin Alex too. Unfortunately, Maya wasn't any too happy with that deal and when they arrived here at the house, she went into a full-blown meltdown on her instead! It took a great deal of cajoling and struggling with Maya to just get her out of the car and into the house and even after that, she continued on and on with her meltdown.

Now Maya and her meltdowns, sometimes you really do have to just sit back and laugh about the things she says and does during them because sometimes they are just downright funny! And that was the case Saturday night when as Maya was stomping, kicking, screaming and crying, in her fits of anger, she ripped down several of those little colorform things (Easter designs in this case) that Mandy had put up on the glass panes of the back door and she rolled them up in a big ball and threw them in the trash can. Upon tossing them, she turned to the rest of us here and announced in a very loud, very authoritive voice, "There! I just cancelled Easter!"

Boy, I was surprised at that announcement cause I just didn't realize that she had the power to do that trick, ya know!

Then, not getting quite the reaction from us that she had expected, she proceeded to sit between the living room and dining rooms and as she pointed to each of us seated at the table, enjoying supper and calling each of us by name too, she stated that "I don't know you!" and "I don't know you" and on and on around the table she went with that. Then grandson Alex piped up to her with this "Well Maya, how come if you don't KNOW any of us here then how can you call each of us by name too like you did!"

Man, she shot him a look of "I Keel You" (like the ventroliquist's dummy says -Jeff Dunworthy, is it maybe?) when Alex said that to her! Too funny!

I especially loved the Cancellation of Easter though, don't you?

Sunday just flew by and it was late when I sat down to work on my embroidery stuff. I figured with what I had left to do on that project I should have been able to have it completed -finally -by maybe 2 or 3 a.m. Monday morning.

And it looked for most of the time that I was gonna be able to meet that deadline too. That is until I realized that I was going to run out of the one color of floss needed to finish up.

But then I thought -no problem -because when I had purchased this particular kit, I had liked it so much that I had ordered two of the kits. So, that meant in the second kit, I had more floss there and I only needed a strand about 18 inches long in order to finish the one I'd been working on, so I opened the other kit to swipe that much floss from it.

But as I went through the different floss colors I realized there was something off kilter here! Wouldn't you just know it but the 2nd kit was missing the very color that I had just run out of from the first kit! How improbable an event is that? What was really screwy too is that in the first kit, when I went through and organized the colors, it too had been missing a color in that kit but it just so happened that I had that particular color in my own floss inventory/stash so I had just used my own material there. I would have ignored that one color being missing (since I already had that color on hand) completely but when the second kit came up show of another color and I had just run out of that other color on the kit I was working on, well I was a tad upset then.

So Monday morning I called the manufacturer's customer service number and complained. So now, they are sending me two skeins of floss in the two colors I had been shorted. Okay it's not any major expense to replace them for them or for me -only about 40 cents per skein of floss -but it is a major savings for me that they are doing that because otherwise I would have had to take the time to drive to either DuBois or State College -a distance of 35-45 miles, one way, a loss of an hour's time to drive over, an hour back, plus time in the store shopping, etc., -all things I really didn't want to do. So it was nice that they are sending that stuff to me for "free" now, isn't it?

Today, was not the normal day that my monthly lunch bunch gets together -usually it is the last Thursday of the month when we meet -but this month, because Kurtis has an appointment at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville tomorrow, the girls moved our lunch ahead a day so I could be able to join them.

And we had a very nice get-together too, we did. I always enjoy these gatherings. Today, one of the girls (Rose) made the comment about how they always tease me and yet rely on me too, to remember dates and ages and little things like that from our history together and she said in her mind's eye, she had thought last month after our meeting that maybe someday years from now, we'll still be getting together and will have to ask me how old each of us is then too!

The way my memory is rapidly evaporating though, I don't think they'll be able to rely on me for that information then! Hope they are all writing these important dates and facts down to save them for posterity, ya know!

I'm still trying to reach the surgeon in Pittsburgh or his physician's assistant -that would be the surgeon who did the colostomy on me 3 years ago and the person I need to contact to find out what he thinks should be done for me now -hernia repair or no hernia repair -hysterectomy here (locally) or hysterectomy there (Pittsburgh). I've called his office on several occasions over the past week and asked to have him or his PA return my call but thus far, I've heard nothing. So I am still wandering around in the mental darkness of my mind I guess you could say! Wish they would call me back so we can discuss this further or if I have to schedule an appointment to see him, to get that much done and preparations moved forward a bit that way.

And then there is Mandy -who returned home last night, arriving about 11:30 p.m. I'm really very relieved to have her back home for many obvious reasons. Yep, I am.

But by the same token, I told little Kurtis last night as I was holding him, rocking him, cuddling and snuggling with him, that maybe his Momma should take little trips like this one more often because it made Kurtis really receptive to my holding him, cuddling him, snuggling him!!! Most of the time when Mandy is here, he wants nothing to do with anyone but her for those things!

And obviously, I enjoyed that part of her being away on vacation the absolute most of all!

Ain't Misbehaving....

I know, I've been a bit AWOL the past two or three days -shirking my responsibility about keeping au currant with the blogs I follow. But trust me, I haven't been up to no good, haven't been misbehaving -at least not yet anyway.

It's Tuesday now, as I write this and tonight, Mandy will return home from her little getaway excursion to spend some quality time visiting with her Dad out in Nevada.

I've been here, manning the home fort. Well, part of it anyway and that would be the Kurtis part as Maya has been staying with Mandy's best friend since last Wednesday and will return home this evening. Probably her return will also create a major meltdown because she dearly loves to spend time at Jenn-Jenn and Nick-Nick's home with their three teenage children.

Now, I do have a really good excuse as to why I haven't been keeping up with my readings the past couple of days. And considering how well-behaved Kurtis really has been to deal with, I sure can't place any blame over on to him for my being this lax and behind.

But really, I was busy. Very busy, as a matter of fact.

Saturday night, I did post about the high school play my older daughter and her son along with my son, his girlfriend and her daughter all attended. It was terrific! Those kids really put on a great showing of "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory."

But prior to the play, I cooked dinner for my daughter and her son, the SIL and myself -(Kurtis had his reliable standby -some leftover mac'n'cheese from Friday's supper), so there were dishes to be done, a little picking up here and there around the place and before I knew it, the time had flown by and without my getting any blogs read.

Sunday, time to cook another big dinner with my son and his "family" here, along with Carrie and Alex. It was so great to have my older daughter and older grandson here for two days -so much fun with Kurtis too, who thoroughly enjoyed the great weather and being able to be outside with people willing to pay attention to him and him only, getting lots and lots exercise and fresh air. And boy, that really paid off in spades too because by 8:15 Sunday night, he was down for the count, sound asleep and whats more, he didn't get up until after 11 a.m. Monday morning! Wiped out, completely, that's for sure.

Sunday afternoon though, Clate, daughter Carrie and I were relaxing at the dining room table after supper and Kurtis was zipping around the room, jabbering away when my son did one of his normal (for him) things. He let out one really huge burp and when he did, Kurtis kind of glanced at him, as if he was wondering about that noise. So Clate decided that it was time to begin trying to teach Kurtis the fine art of belching. (Something my son truly does excel at and takes great pride in his long, very loud burps too.)

So Clate told Kurtis to watch him and listen carefully and yes, he let another big belch out! After which, he told Kurtis, "Now, you do that!" And to our surprise, Kurtis did try to imitate Uncle Clate but without the actual belching cause he doesn't know yet that those things can be done on command. But anyway, he stood there a second or two and then he made this loud growling sound -kind of like saying "ARRGH" ya know and I have to confess it was so comical to see him trying his best to do like Uncle Clate, that Carrie, Clate and I just howled laughing.

Then he made it even funnier too because we would say to him, "Kurtis. Burp." and he would make the same sound, over and over again. Even this morning, he remembered what he was to do if I asked him to burp so we really did have a lot of fun and laughs with him over that little bit. Probably shouldn't be teaching him stuff like that but heck, he'll learn it eventually and if he's going to truly be a part of this family, then he has to be able to compete with some of the others who take such pride in their belching endeavors.

But anyway, Monday I had to break down and do some emergency laundry -something I don't do because the washer and dryer are in the basement and those stairs have no railing for me to hold on to, plus my right leg in particular rebels about going down steps like that and I have a fear I will lose my balance and tumble down the steps. The very last thing I need to do is fall and break a bone anywhere, ya know. But since this was an emergency thing, I threw the stuff to be washed (sheets, blankets from my bed that the rotten little Tom-Kitten had sort of baptized) and then, very cautiously proceeded down the steps, holding on to whatever I could to steady myself as best I could.

While down in the basement, I came across some things there -stuff that had been taken downstairs to stash them out of sight until we figured out something to do with them, ya know. And I started to think -something that also is not always a good thing too -about ways that maybe we could use some of the materials Bill has stashed in the basement to alleviate some major storage issues in this old place.

I spied some lumber Bill has piled in one part of the cellar and got to thinking that maybe he could build some kind of shelving in our entrance way where we could put shoes so they would be out of the way, in an orderly fashion and clear up a lot of the clutter in that area. I get really frustrated with everyone's shoes just laying around there and when you need a specific pair, the mate is always missing and well, it would just be helpful to be a bit more organized.

If nothing else, maybe he could some of the wood there to build some type of book shelves into the corner behind where the tv stands now which would help to eliminate so many books and magazines being piled hither, thither and yon too. That would be a great place to have some additional shelves where we could put things that we're always trying to find some place that is high enough, with no access way for little fingers to be able to reach and get into, ya know!

That's one of the big drawbacks to living in an old, old house that no matter what one does, there is always so much in the way of storage places being available. So, to compensate, one has to try to figure out ways to utilize every stinking nook and cranny!

I mentioned the idea of some kind of shelves for the shoes to the SIL and he actually agreed with me and thought it could be done fairly easily. Now, finding a way to prod him into actually doing that -that will be the real problem, for sure. I figure I best be quiet about suggesting any more "custom-building" ideas to him as given too many suggestions about things like that will get him to feeling overwhelmed almost immediately.

Yeah -keep it simple and go "one step or one day" at a time and who knows, maybe one of these days, the idea will strike him and he'll think it was his idea all along and then, he'll hop to it and get it done.

Now I'd best get to bed so I can get up and get Kurtis ready to take to his therapy appointment and from there, to his school and that will give me roughly 3 hours of "free time" to come home and look around for maybe some more ideas or better yet, do some work on yet another embroidery project I started tonight.

Or maybe I'll just come back home and take a nap and dream about these things ever happening!

Dream Along With Me!

Mandy's been gone since this past Wednesday -along with her boss-lady, Deb.

They flew out of Pittsburgh Thursday around 1 p.m., landing safely in Phoenix where her Dad met her at the airport to transport her to his place in Laughlin, Nevada where she will be until tomorrow -Monday -at which time, her stepmother will drive her down to Phoenix to meet up with Deb and her friends and then, Tuesday, they will depart for points east -like Pittsburgh!

I'm really glad Mandy had this opportunity to get out to see her Dad again and to roam around Laughlin, meet up with a lady she's been communicating with online too for the past 7-8 years now. She deserves the chance to see her Dad (so do the two other kids too for that matter) much more than she (or they) can simply due to the distance involved.

All three of my kids now have a pretty solid relationship too with their Dad although, if someone had told me about 12-20 years ago that this would ever take place, I probably would have laughed in their face.

It was a long time coming, a hard time to restore the relationship that had been severed between the kids and their Dad over the years following our divorce. And I am really and truly very relieved, very, very happy, that it all came about for them to have rebuilt this on what was back then a very rocky foundation.

But, tonight -after having spent a great two days with my older daughter and older grandson plus having had them plus my son, his girlfriend and her daughter here for supper tonight, I couldn't help but think about something else though too.

I really need a vacation!

Yeah, I do. I haven't had a real, bonafide vacation in so many years now, I don't think I can remember exactly when I did have one. Maybe back in 1983 when older daughter along with two friends of mine from the restaurant where I worked and I took a couple of days and escaped to Atlantic City, New Jersey. That may have been my last vacation I think.

Or it might have been the week I took in 1982 when the kids and I went to visit my best friend in Maryland, from there we went to Ohio, to Cedar Point and after that, drove out to Illinois to see their paternal grandparents. That might have been the last time I had a full week of "No work, just fun" vacation time so I do think I am very much overdue in that area, don't you?

I'd be happy going just about anywhere, as long as it is away for a little while from the normal every day doings here for a bit.

But here's something I'd really like to do though -and that's to get one of the units available through the Outer banks beach rentals< for a week -a full week, yes -and go there with my whole family and maybe even a few close friends too as a really terrific getaway.

Of course, to do something like that would take a great deal of planning -not just to coordinate when each of us could go someplace but also, how to acquire adequate funds too so that we could afford to do this too. (Hence, the idea of maybe a few close friends might be willing to go along with us too -lessen the cash outlay on each person involved that way, wouldn't it?)

But seriously, why not? I know a couple family groups around here who do just that every year. But then too, they also have bigger families than mine and a little sounder financial picture too, come to think of it. But still and all, I do think it's an idea that warrants taking a bigger, closer look at, ya know.

Or heck, maybe some of you -my blogger friends -might want to take a vacation somewhere on the east coast and with enough bloggers, we could easily fill one of these gorgeous beach homes and have a great time together, enjoying the sun, surf and summer fun, couldn't we?

Just some food for though in one of my crazy dreams but one that I think has a touch more probability that it could happen that my idea of going to Sweden some day.

As long as I can keep dreaming though, I'll be okay!