About Valerie

According to my stats, ya'll are extremely curious about what i've been doing.
i guess i can understand it.  i always check out bloggers' profiles, and mine is pretty scanty.  And i haven't really given you anything in the page about my family and me.

So, here is a bit more.  It's hard for me to write/talk about myself.  i'm more of a quiet, listening type of person.
           The next part is from the deleted post, What i've Been Doing Lately/ General Overview of My Life, written 1/26/12:
  i tend to freeze when people ask me what i've been doing.
  See, i'm one of those people who have taken an unusual path, these days anyway.  With young adult kids, i'm a SAHM (stay at home mom) and professional volunteer.    
  Not that i'm always at home.
  And i don't exactly fill my days with volunteering.  i like to think what i do is important, but who knows?  Some things can't be evaluated until long afterward.
  With Max's needs, paid employment isn't exactly easy, and i've always been the one for the easy route.  (Lots of parents with greater financial needs than ours have found it necessary to stay home with their special needs kids, but that's another topic that requires more research than i have at hand at the moment.)
  See, i can't even answer the question now?
  i network.  i do PTA, to a greater extent than i planned.  There's a few other things i do to help out at school.  i'm coming to terms with myself as an artist and writer.  It seems i've been both all my life, but just now am i integrating the names into my identity.  
  i supervise/coordinate Max's education, therapies, medical  and financial needs.  (There's a fulltime job there if you like.)  In addition to finding and getting out the material for his Sunday school class, i'm on the teaching rotation.  i am his "comfort person" when he doesn't respond in ways i recognize as responding to comfort.  With MyGuy, i mentor Boom, our eldest, as he navigates the murky waters of post college pre real career.
  i meet with a small prayer group from church most weeks and other friends as i can. We do breakfast, lunch, or scrapbook together.  There might be a Bible study/accountability grouping going before long.
  i read & study various things, though in no disciplined order.  (Sometimes i keep up a topic for a few months though.)   And there's the too much TV thing and not enough physical activity thing.
  And this blog.  It is my way of sharing my unique views, as the mom of a young adult with autism, who is still in public education, the mom of another kid  who went through school with the traditionally gifted label, on education, the world in general.  Because i'm a quiet person who is often not able to speak up in person.
  i know i've left out important stuff, but maybe you get the idea.
             End of deleted post
On the other hand, EVERYTHING you find here is about me.  (Which tells you how hard it was for me to get started on this billboard world of the internet.)

Here are some posts which i consider to be especially telling about myself, putting all my secrets out in the open. Maybe sometime i'll actually put new content here, and from time to time i'll add more links.
Who knows, i might even someday find it necessary to say where & when i went to HS & college.
         What's in the Lower Case
         The Reputation and the Reality
         The Sea and the Lake
         Things i am Known For

   2/24/15 Update:
i no longer volunteer with PTA, since Max is graduated.  It's not forbidden by PTA< but the school wants to do it without has-been parents.  
i do keep up our memberships and attend the special services board meetings.
Mostly i'm chauffeur & manager for Max.  i also have a couple of posts in Indy Decorative Artists, and 1-3x/month, teach his Sunday school class.
i'm pursuing therapy for the hand thing.  The carpal tunnel surgery, after the surgery, six weeks later  Currently unfindable is another post CALLED Hand Thing, about the glove i wear
i write and make art, but nothing anybody pays me for.
Yeah, story of my life.
BTW, i am not on Twitter at this point.  May be someday, but no.  To email me, see the sidebar bottom of the page.  You'll have to put real dots where i wrote "dot," but i have confidence you can do this.