7 More Things

Alana gave me the perfect excuse to share seven more things about myself. Let’s call this one, “7 ways I became obnoxiously accomplished”:

1. I took 8 years of ballet as a child/teen, plus two more years as an adult. That might explain why I’m soooo frustrated with being “fat” recently. I’ve had my body the way I wanted it and used it the way I wanted it for so long….ok, enough psychoanalyzing on the first point!
2. Three years of piano lessons, to the point where I can read music. Bach Rocks.
3. Ad naseum art lessons: drawing, painting, even pottery. Drawing is my best. I can only paint in three dimensions if I can do it in pointillism.
4. Sew, knit, embroider, spin yarn, dye, and cover screens and I know not what else.
5. Add in one year of Irish Step Dancing lessons and a smidgen of ice skating lessons. I skate backwards better than I do forwards. Still have my really expensive ice skates in the closet with no ice arena within 2 hours drive. Drat!
6. Enough German to get me lunch and a train ticket.
7. Is baking perfect chocolate chip cookies one of the finer distinctions of civilization? If so, I am a truly accomplished woman.

Your turn. How accomplished are you?

[All the above is factual, but said in a completely LOL manner.]

Second Anniversary

Two years ago this week, I married this man….

…and we couldn’t be happier!

Still Breathing

Going through blogging withdrawl…must type…argghh.

There are some grand things going on behind the curtains. Things I never though would happen. And plans are unfolding. Waiting for important phone calls, still. August might be a better month for those plans. Shoulder shrug.

Work is still agonizingly busy. Helping with the current projects, plus the Add-on project was not enough. Now the University is starting their 10 year accreditation review. “Oh, yeah, what did we promise to improve 8 years ago? Did anyone save those papers? Shouldn’t the Archives have that??”

I might have to resort to heavy caffeine usage or cloning, cause there is not enough of me to go around.

Husband and cat are healthy. Mom is doing ok, still weakened from a bout of pneumonia two weeks ago. And Dawn made it to Texas! Yeeee-haw!

Lesson of the last 2 weeks: When God moves, He can do so swiftly that the cobwebs in your brain are blown away! [I will let yall in on the secrets soon, I hope!]

Lunch break is over…back to the grind…

Unintentional Blogging Break

Crunch time at work…in many unfair ways. Misery heaped upon no company but me, myself and I. Pray!

There might be a light at the end of the tunnel which isn’t a train. Sorry to be cryptic but I am waiting for an important phone call.

I have a pile of photos to share. Maybe tonight.

Birth-Weekend

This is my birth-weekend, because one day is just not enough to celebrate. I have now joined the 10 year plan of being Twenty Nine. With my youthful looks, this should be easy. Unless I have babies. I hear that is when one starts to sprout grey hairs. Even then, most people wouldn’t believe me when I share my age.

Some time in between visiting Paula the Goat Lady tomorrow and eating chocolates and an ice cream sundae on Sunday (yay!), I want to take an hour or two with my journal and God to do some reflecting. Consider the birthday as a New Year’s celebration, is my motto.

Enjoy the Gregorian Chant, “Enigma”, one of my favorite 90’s musical products:

Be blessed where ever you are!

When to Ask For Help

The “refining fire” I mentioned earlier this week has lessened thanks to the generosity of our church family. We had an unexpected bill from our auto insurance company, who had decided that we were a credit risk and put us on a six month plan instead of a monthly payment! I learned later from our elder, who is also an insurance agent for a different company, that they shouldn’t have done that to a 10-year + loyal customer. Well, I paid the bill out of fear and was left very short for the month.

What to do?? I’ve never been in this position before…having to seek help outside of my family. The whole situation tumbled out of a tearful me at a dinner gathering of our Bible study group on Thursday night. By Friday afternoon, we were approved for an amount from the church’s benevolence fund to tide us over until our next pay check! I was flabbergasted.

To top it off, our dear friend and goat-milk lady Paula, offered to barter milk for a couple head scarves! Jeff said that is what Christians do: We practice charity.

This too shall pass

Hello all - I know it has been a couple of days since I’ve written anything. We are experience some serious “refining by fire” here in our household. I will share more this weekend.

My mother is being scheduled for a surgery next week for the fluid around her heart; she should be in the hospital for a minimum of 3 days. I am still on vigilant stand-by in case anything should happen.

Work is crazy busy on top of it all. With my boss leaving at the end of the month, it will all be on my shoulders soon. And my student worker is gone until July. Gaging from how ‘business’ has picked up in the last two weeks, I may not be able to quit until late summer/early fall or until my boss’s vacancy is filled. SIGH.

Aspie Update - Executive Dysfunction

It’s been a while since I wrote about Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome…and I have been reminded quite powerfully in the last 24 hours that, yes indeed, I am still an Aspie.

First came the sugar crash yesterday afternoon. I ate two cookies plus trail mix with M&Ms. Yuck! By dinner time, I was dragging my sorry tail into the apartment without a clue as to what to cook for dinner. Hubby saw that overwhelmed and deflated look and jumped in to rescue me. He can make some seriously good tuna mac ‘n cheese. Then I spaced out in front of the computer, to escape from what I know is Executive Command Dysfunction.

Every so often, maybe twice a month, I get this overwhelmed-ness with even basic tasks. If I am tired or sugar-whacked, this exacerbates the underlying issue of my Autism. Most people operate with a running hierarchy of to-do lists in their minds, or on a palm pilot or 3×5 card. I, and many folks with ASD, have a different operating system to handle daily tasks, or seemingly very little system at all.

When I walk through my apartment door, like last night, I immediately see all the things I need to do…but I cannot see where to begin. All the tasks hit me at once as intensely and immediately important. For instance, the disorderly bookshelf is as blaring, let’s say, as the cat barf ten paces ahead on the carpet. Of course, I have enough functioning to take care of the yack first, but the books are still right there almost screaming at me to straighten them out. And then the kitchen table wasn’t wiped in the morning…and the dishes were not washed…and the cat water/food/box needs freshening…and the half dozen unfinished sewing and knitting projects…and the 8 books I am reading….

THEY ALL NEED DONE, NOW!

You would want to hide behind a computer monitor, too.

Since my diagnosis last summer, I have made some baby steps (Bob, I love it!) in recognizing when and how these types of shut downs happen. I can cogitate on the problem…but have not made many strides (as in the article) on how to corral the haywire Executive Command.

Got some suggestions? Questions?

Hey George Soros, Buy Us A Farm!

I stumbled upon this chart with the fifty largest charitable hedge funds on Wall Street. Mr. Soros, I picked you out of the line-up just because I recognized your name from some hazy memories of CNN news reports. I also hear you are a fellow Magyar. It looks like you are sitting on a rather large foundation, like one pillar in the center of the Acropolis. We have a suggestion for a tiny fraction of that robust portfolio.

Buy us a farm. Nothing fancy, mind you. It could even lack electricity and running water. The acreage can be a minimum of three open acres, but woods, a stream, and a couple of hills to build a hobbit house into would be ideal.

We’d love to raise goats or maybe a few cows so the community can become healthier through real milk. Jeff is pretty adept at speaking chicken, so there will be some fowl running around the place. Two mules are a must. I love gardening. You really haven’t lived until you have eaten a freshly picked baby green salad with sun-warmed yellow peppers!

It wouldn’t be just us living there, either. We plan on having at least one other couple/single mom/family move in. More hands make light work. I could tutor/homeschool any children on our property.

The return for your investment is to know that a small patch of God’s earth is very, very well tended. We will get off the grid as much as possible with our electrical/petroleum usage. You are also allowed to drop in at any time (with a modicum of notice) to see how the land and the people fare. You may eat at our table, drink from the spring or well, sleep in a guest room, or snooze in a hammock. I might even knit you a pair of socks for winter every year.

You seem interested in helping out the world. So, how about relocating some overly-educated landless peasants?

Monday Sprinkles, 5-19-08

….No Sugar sprinkles! I am coming down off sugar gently. Saturday I had two fruit-based drinks, but no dessert-y items. Yesterday I drank a diet lemonade (had no real choice in that) with lunch. We ate at Golden Corral, which is really a CAFO for humans, once you think of it. I stuck to eating recognizable foods, mostly plants and a couple of crab patties. Again, no dessert.

The biggest triumph was last night’s dinner. We ate *real* bacon and eggs with kombucha to drink. About an hour later, I was craving chocolate, really bad. I had half a bag of chocolate chips in the freezer. My mind bargained with my stomach to a compromise of a handful of chips. I poured out the handful onto a paper towel and ate only half that amount! I put back the rest with their friends in the freezer. Yay me!

For my new diet guidelines, I am using these suggestions. Of course, I am not going the lean meat/low-fat dairy route. Full-on, straight from the goat only, please!

I have some pictures to share later, of a new outfit and some artwork.