October 16, 2012

it snores

Should I just cut off his head? I only use it on holidays. It sounds like he’s dying anyway.

I can’t remember if I told you guys I was recently diagnosed with ADD. It’s good news because it explains a lot traits I’ve always beaten myself up over or just perplexed me. Finding church sermons and school lectures impossible to really listen too. Not finishing things. And insomnia.

Right now I’m sitting in the bathroom wondering if I’m typing too loud because my fantastic, lost Robertson brother-in-law is here working on the new house and sleeping in the living room. The bathrooms are the only rooms without sleeping people in them, so I don’t get my 3 hour wind down time I’ve come to learn is part of ADD. I just figured that out and find it funny.

October 13, 2012

Are you still there? It’s me, Jenny

We finally got the keys to the new house. Buying a foreclosure through HUD saved us a ton of money, but everything ran on government time. The most frustrating part was the title company. Apparently, HUD has a contract with one title company for the entire state of Washington, and they are absolutely horrible. I won’t bore you with the detail… just something to know if you ever decide to go that way. There was delay after delay for no reason other than the desk jockey across the state being a ninny. If we would have say… been in a rental and needed to be out by a certain day we would have had serious problems.

It all worked out. We have a ton of work to do on the house before we can move in. I’m glad I didn’t get the job I interviewed for the day we sold our old house because this thing will be a full time job until the holidays. It’s been vacant for a long time, but it doesn’t smell that way. Because someone’s been in there just peeing on the carpet constantly. However, I do take comfort in the knowledge that no one’s been murdered there because that would make the house smell better. This afternoon I also started to notice a chili powder aroma wafting from the main bath. I wonder what demon smells of chili powder.

So far I’ve gotten 4 cans of ceiling paint applied to some ceilings in the last 2 days, removed the fronts and drawers from the cabinets, lightly sanded said cabinet boxes and started painting them. Of course we closed an hour before the kids started a 3 days weekend followed by a week of half days for conferences. I finally got a dvd situation set up for them today. (So, what do you think of my white girl problems so far?)

Thank God for our buyer’s agent. She really guided us through all the shenanigans the last 15 months and gave us a nice housewarming basket which included the dinner leftovers I’m eating now.

As you can now tell, I haven’t been posting because I’m boring as hell.

September 23, 2012

update 9/24/12

The sale of our last home officially closed. 15 months and ten years worth of lost equity, but I really think we’ll be able to build some of it back up with this house. We could close on that as early as Tuesday, definitely within the week… I hope.

I have two storage units full of cheap but good furniture to restore that I’ve picked up over the last year. I’m trying to take pictures of everything I do to post here.

Our community is still dealing with fires. We’ve lost one firefighter, but no other life or property. The smoke is bad and we’ll be dealing with it to some extent until it snows I believe. Our school district hasn’t closed school and a monster mommy war erupted over it. Embarrassing.

My earworm of the week is The Head and The Heart’s Down in the Valley, probably because these fires have reminded me how fortunate I am to live where I do, the people and locale. It’s comforting and sometimes painful to be surrounded by people who’ve known me for a long, long time again, but I’m more at peace and feel more like myself than I have in years.

I’m also enjoying the new Dylan. New Mumford and Sons is coming out very soon too!

September 13, 2012

my world is literally on fire

Photo by high school classmate/photographer Jodi Stehr. I believe taken from her house. Like her FB page: http://www.facebook.com/stehrstepsphotography

A lightning storm Saturday night started a slew of brush and wildfires in Central Washington. The midwest has tornadoes, the coast has hurricanes and we have fires; it’s part of living here.

But the only time I remember them being this close to town was the one that burned my sister’s home and twenty others to the ground two decades ago. That one was started by some kids playing with matches in the foothills behind her house on a very windy day. My sister and two youngest nieces barely got out with their lives as the fire barreled down the hill and erupted as embers hit covenant required cedar shake roofs. I’ll never forget walking in my mom’s house to find my then 2-year-old niece obliviously playing by the fireplace and safe (aqua t-shirt, diaper, flaming red hair), my sister knowing for sure their house was gone when she called and didn’t get a dial tone and getting to see me genius brother-in-law pull the diamond from her ring out of the rubble.

I still shudder to think of how close we came to losing them. We’re so grateful no one lost their lives, and yes, it’s just stuff. But the tragedy of losing the home you’ve built, physically and figuratively is indeed traumatic and life-altering.

I’m always amazed at how rarely we lose life and property. In this case there’s warning, so everyone who needs to evacuate is ready to go at this point. So far we’ve lost a barn, but hundreds of homes remain in danger and there are fires which haven’t even been responded to yet.

We live in a pretty great community. Individuals are reaching out to help the displaced and businesses are comping the fire crews and evacuees, including a yoga studio and, most importantly, a downtown pub.

It’s smoky, especially since the winds died down a few days ago. It’s not healthy, but I guess I prefer it to weather that would fuel the fire even more. Not everyone sees it that way, but our entire region is on fire and we’ve lost a barn. I’m stoked… so to speak.

September 4, 2012

checkin’ in

Our house finally sold, and we’re buying a foreclosure to hopefully make up some of our lost equity. And by “lost equity” I mean all of our equity. The place needs a lot of work, so I’ll be busy this winter fixing that house and repairing what we’ve done to my mother’s house.

Making our home safe from and for Jack has always been a challenge, so as I’m doing this I’ll try to share what solutions work and which ones don’t for setting up and running a household with an autistic child.

Home renovation is also a hobby of mine, and I have an almost religious belief in decorating your house according to the era it was built. This is a 1977 split level, and yes, I do consider that a classic home. By the way, it doesn’t just have popcorn ceilings; they popcorned the whole soffet in the kitchen, and popcorned it shall stay.

In the meantime, here’s my current earworm:

June 28, 2012

lawyerings

Yeah, yeah, yeah… Obamacare sucks, and so does it’s mom. No what else sucks? Your mom playing lawyer on the internet. She reminds me of this:

June 8, 2012

Lauryn Hill is nuts

She’s in trouble for not paying taxes on $1.5 million dollars. There are almost legit reasons people protest paying income tax, but Hill’s are so weird I wonder if she understands what taxes are.

She attempted to explain on her Tumblr… hang on I need to stab myself in the face. Go look, it’s weird. It’s the PR version of one of those giant steaks a restaurant won’t charge you for if you eat the whole thing. If you can get through it you should get a prize. You should, but you won’t.

She attempts to rationalize her actions by linking them to her attempt to quit being famous, except for when she claims to have made millions of dollars for other people by being famous. I do like the idea of famous people paying all the taxes. I also like the idea of a torrid affair with Dan Auerbach.

The good news is since she’s into withdrawing from society she should love prison.

June 4, 2012

crackpot autism reporting at the daily

A friend sent me this story from The Daily. (I’m not sure if he wants to be h/t-ed, and no one is reading this anyway.) The lede implies that a Nobel prize-winning physician is teaming up with the ostracized Dr. Andrew Wakefield and saying that simple antibiotics cure autism.

You can read (hopefully with a vat of salt) the story; I’m not interested in spending a ton of time on this crap anymore. Pardon the vulgarity, but it’s a circle jerk, and I’m nearly blind. Hopefully, readers will be discerning and wonder to themselves, “Hey, how would such a smart man come to such a bizarre conclusion? Maybe I should settle down and investigate his rationale for himself.”

They would learn Dr. Luc Montagnier has a theory about infective agents being involved in autism. Ms. Gifford snarks that Dr. M is saying, “A single antibiotic pill each day, he believes, is enough to cure the devastating ailment.” A statement that’s contradicted elsewhere in her own article.

What’s happening is Dr. Montagnier is proposing a possible treatment that might be used with other treatments. For some patients. After further research. And much careful thought from caregivers and doctors.

Her opinion (I really hope this article isn’t intended to serve as responsible reporting) is backed up by a couple quotes from Paul Offit whose sole purpose in life has become to be the Luke Skywalker to Wakefield’s Darth Vader. (Or vice versa. I don’t care anymore.) Paul Offit could give a shit about helping people with autism, in my opinion.

Gifford is quick to mention that Dr. Montagnier’s remarks were made at a Generation Rescue event and that Generation Rescue is the headquarters for Jenny McCarthy’s activism, and that Jenny McCarthy has posed for Playboy, as if that’s relevent. It isn’t.

All that is annoying, but it’s nothing new. What’s infuriating is the tone of the rest of the article, and hundreds of other articles, which imply that parents are so stupid as to forego all other treatments and opt to give their kids an antibiotic and call it a day.

That’s absurd; Offit, Gifford and their ilk know it. They think it’s cute. Maybe as cute as a short bus full of non-verbal, stimming kids with chronic GI issues being driven to anyone’s home but theirs.

June 1, 2012

skateboarding and autism is perfect fit

We moved to Selah, Washington in late 2007, about a year before Jack was diagnosed with autism. It was a small town, so I was surprised to see they already had a skatepark – behind the high school near the mainstream sports fields. Once in awhile I would drive by and think about how in a couple of years Jack would be using it. I gave more thought to whether or not I would insist he wear a helmet skateboarding than I did to whether or not circumcised him as a baby.

After he was diagnosed my heart would drop when I drove by because he would probably never be able to skate or do any other sport. Not because he wouldn’t have the physical potential, but because he wouldn’t have the social skills. At that time I couldn’t even let go of his hand for a minute at the grocery store. I know my husband has dealt with similar disappointments about things like little league and Boy Scouts.

Jack really struggles with some sensory issues which give him an impulse to bang his head against the wall to the point where he actually breaks sheetrock and has formed a permanent callous on his forehead. He tends to jump a lot and be generally rambunctious, beyond the normal boy kind. He also seems to like to move furniture and heavy objects around for no clear reason. He tried to move the dining room table to the basement once. The way I understand it he’s seeking out the impact on his joints… or something. I had wondered if skateboarding would get some of that out his system, and I finally googled “autism + skateboarding” a few weeks ago.

I don’t know about the sensory stuff, but I found out skateboarding is being used therapeutically to help autistic kids socially. It’s the kind of sport where conformity has no value and they can sort of do their own thing with other people. It goes to “parallel play”.

The best resource I’ve found is A.skate (<— I think you’ll “like” their Facebook page), and I’ve been driving everyone nuts about it ever since. It was started by a mom, Crys Worley, after seeing how much skateboarding helped her son. They travel the country, largely out of pocket, and hold skateboarding clinics for kids with autism to try it out. They provide all the gear for the clinic, and if a child wants to continue they offer grants to pay for their own gear. It’s also cool that the funds are given to a local skate shop, as opposed to a discount retailer, like store credit, so they’re supporting the industry.

Just go check out their website. Watch these videos. Flip through their flickr. Keep in mind how awesome it is just to see kids with autism and their families having bonafide fun outside their house.

And check it out, Ben Harper has signed a limited number of these prints to raise money for a.skate. Ironically, this album played a huge part of getting me through my most recent dark period spent worrying about how autism was affecting both of my kids.