Remembering a Strange Sign

  MyGuy's Granddad had a lot of stories.  Like most of us, we didn't listen as closely as we should have, but MyGuy was remembering this story last night, and, as usual with us, it led to a minilesson in communicating.

Wordless Wednesday: Snooze

The Reason for the Season

Life on the Computer Farm: Mail Error & Chronotypes

  Tuesday morning my main email account worked just fine.
  Sometime while i was out Tuesday, my mailhost decided that my password was not my password and my main language is Spanish.

Wordless Wednesday: Flattop Hill in Kau

One of the flattop mountains of Ka'u, Hawaii.

A Beauty Tip - For the Brave (Or is that Stupid?)

  You won't find many beauty tips on my blog.  This one appears because my stylist complimented me on my "beautiful, 'natural' brow arch."

  After i stopped laughing, i told her the story, and i thought ya'll might be interested too.

A Christmas Movie

  No, not that one.  i seem to be the only person who doesn't find the movie with the leg lamp charmingly nostalgic.
  This one, while also referencing Indiana, is much different.
  My father in law recommended Remember the Night as a heartwarming screwball comedy.  i didn't think a 1940 movie would be so suggestive.

"But we can't put up a Christmas tree because the kids would get into it."

  So many times i hear parents tell me that they can't put up a Christmas tree or play board games, whatever, because the kids would make a mess of it. 

  It does take creativity, and God knows i'm not always up to it myself. But it's important to stretch yourself and your kids, because if you don't take the time & effort now, it may or may not be easier when they're bigger.  

i think i got the ideas shown in the photos

Not Quite Wordless Wednesday: Grownup Christmas Wish

 

Here is a link to a video to one of my favorite modern Christmas songs.

(Sorry about the brief ad - it's the way of the internet.)

Wordless Wednesday: When the Stair Room was Mainly Stairs

After our own Extreme Home Makeover, it took a long time to make the stair room into the very full room it is today.

Brave New World: The Future, Autism, and Siblings

  In his blog entry today, John Elder Robison comments on the Time article Autism's Invisible Victims: The Siblings.
  As a person with autism himself, he has numerous issues with the article.  It is perhaps written with amazing unfeelingness for a professional - or simply amazingly limited perspective.  The author, Barbara Cain, seems to have fallen prey to the popular notion that "people with autism" is always equal to "children with autism."
  But children with autism grow up.
  Many of them grow up to be highly competent.  Some even MIT engineers - one MIT alum suggests that

 "the 'abnormal' condition known as Asperger's syndrome" could be "remarkably similar to the 'normal' functioning of an engineer's mind"        Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2089358,00.html#ixzz2E0vUipCX

  Some of them remain little children in men's bodies.  Here is a Time magazine book excerpt of a sibling's story of one of them.  i don't know any statistics on how many grow up to be like this; probably not as many as Ms Cain, the author of my originally cited Times article above seems to think.

  Max is 22.  He is in between.  He dresses himself.  He toilets independently, but gives no clue whether all is well or not in that department.  He's still struggling with that 3rd grade reading comprehension.  If he could get past that, maybe then the engineer thing.
  But there is a long way to go.
  And yes, there have been brother inconveniences. But there always are. Has Boom been a victim of his brother's autism?
  Not as much as Max has.  And will be.

Saturday Sisters: Reading Biblical Fiction

  i've been reading Biblical fiction since i was ten or twelve years old.
  It's a very uplifting experience.
  But there's a problem with it.