postcrossing

I'm having a bit of fun. I joined www.postcrossing.com, which is a free service. you register, and ask for addresses to send post cards to, and when they're received, your name gets put in, and then you get post cards back. i've gotten them from china, germany (twice), the netherlands, the phillipines, lithuania, south africa, the us (west virginia, ohio and utah), and the last from spain. i actually replied to her in a small amount of spanish, let's see how she responds, lol.

i'm enjoying this. i've got odd postcards from interesting areas. and i'm keeping them. much to mark's chagrin, lol. right now, i've gotten 12, so my collection fits in one drawer of the desk. i've been going to the local bookstore, and getting nebraska postcards from there. however, their collection is kind of limited (a lot of them from the mormon cemetary up the street (they ARE the winter quarters bookstore, lol). i need to go to the zoo, and get some cool ones there.

the best part? all it costs me is the cost of the postcard AND postage. it's 97 cents to mail international, and 27 to mail in the us. wheeeeee!

Remind me

I didn't craft at all yesterday. It was a bad day after I got home from Miss Violet's. The school called, and Sean got suspended again. This is his 5th suspension (and we still haven't finished the semester yet). I won't go into why, except he needs to learn to control his mouth.

It was a tense afternoon, and evening. Sean was absolutely livid when he got home, as was Mark. While dinner went well, there were specific tensions. Sean asked for ice cream, and I decided that he could have an ice cream sandwich, rather than the last of the drumsticks. That pissed him off, so he went upstairs rather than have any. Mark got bent out of shape, and went to bed.

Then Sean came down and proceeded to puke for an hour. He'd get up, puke, then lay on the floor in the bathroom. I won't go any further than that, for those of you who are a bit sensitive stomach-wise. He fell asleep on the bathroom floor, claiming he was going to stay in there for the night. I finally woke him up around 9, and he decided he felt a little better, and could go upstairs after all.

With a bunch of other stuff going on (in case y'all didn't know, I'm the Managing Editor for the Daily Chum, and i was working on some major stuff (watch that space after Thanksgiving. you'll love it!), and ended up not touching fiber or needles, and going to bed at 11:30.

Today, I picked up my crochet (AC4C are asking for strips to piece into blankets, as they're faster to join, for the Pine Ridge Reservation), and after 3 stitches, I could feel the peace and harmony flooding through me.

So, do me a favor. If you see me on Plurk howling about insanity, or if i bitch here about the nuttiness that can be and is being the mother of highly intelligent children (not to mention Sean's other issues), ask me if i've picked up any fiber. Doesn't matter what, be it spinning, knitting, or crocheting (not sewing, though, that causes me more stress). Remind me. I need it.

Red Neck Fire Alarm

And now, for a little levity

Get your dose today!

get the word out.

as many of you know, sean has asperger's. he also has ODD (oppositional defiant disorder), ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and OCD tendencies (obsessive compulsive disorder). the OCD isn't full blown because he isn't completely compulsive about things, but it can manifest itself at any time (when he's nervous, he'll pick his lip or his fingers, or anything else to bleeding).

here's what i propose. the biggest problem sean is having at school at this point is a lack of understanding. students, staff, and even a few teachers (i won't go into which ones, but i have my ideas) think he can control all of his behaviors, and just needs a good kick in the pants. what they fail to realize is that the last word in all those alphabet soup diagnoses is DISORDER. not working right. i don't wanna say that sean is disordered, but what he is is different.

i propose that we get the word out. if more people knew what asperger's was, and how it works, there might be more understanding. sean is a brilliant young man. he blows everybody out of the water in his biology class. there is actual discussion of putting him in honors chemistry next year, not because his grade in biology supports it, but because of what he says in that class. i'm sure i've said this before, but he has a college level chemistry book that he asked for a few years back. HE UNDERSTANDS IT. he understood it when i bought it. he and mark will go through it, and try and figure out what would happen if you combined this element with this element. also, his IEP teacher thinks that if he's in an AP class, the kids there have a different level of maturity, and be more tolerant of how he is (which is what he's getting in his biology class. the teacher is fantastic, and i've been told there's a group of kids in there who help sean as much as they can (not with homework lol, but other ways) and missed him while he was out of school).

most of all, if more people accepted sean for what he is, different (and not really all THAT different), he might be more accepting of himself. i know there is a small part inside that says "what the hell am i doing." he's told me. he knows when he's done wrong, but just can't stop sometimes. i just wish the life lessons in socialization were a little more gentle (unlike the young man who punched sean after sean kicked him for getting in his face because "you're weird.")

i have a new motto in life.

Normal is the setting on a dishwasher, not a description of people.

i have a dream

a caveat, first: i think it's great that barack obama won. i honestly think it will be a revolutionary change.

however, here we go.

I have a dream. I have a dream that some day it won't matter if you're black, white, red, or yellow, male or female, tall, small, skinny or fat. It won't matter. I have a dream that a person will be judged on their merits and skills, on who they are, and not what they are.

That is my dream