One Little Word and the Universe

I don't usually document much of my journey with One Little Word.  One Little Word is an invention of Ali Edwards.  Each year you choose a word to define your year.  I chose Clarity for my word.  I felt like my world had become a little muddy.  I had lost the big picture on a number of fronts.  Well, if you ask for the universe for clarity it provides it. So, here is my end of the year one little word update.

My first AH HA.  " IF you don't Track it, YOU can't change it"   So I have a number of goals I am tracking more in depth.  For example, I keep track of my steps in a planner.  Yes, I know that fitbit does this as well but I needed to see it more in a graphic way.  I noticed in January I had three days when I didn't even make 5,000 step days.  So I resolved to have less under 5,000 days.  In February, I had 1 day less than 5,000 step days.  I  challenged myself in March to consistently walk 6,000 steps every darn day. I can say generally that I average 8000 consistently every day.


Secondly, is the phrase " Begin with the end in mind".  I had lost track of what I was actually trying to accomplish.  The details and drama had derailed me from what the end goal was.  I am responsible for several people's well being and it is so easy to forget what the end game is.  The end game is for them to be responsible for THEMSELVES. This goal was in the forefront at the beginning of the year as I had a student driver. It took him longer than expected to get his license but he did it. We all survived

Loss
If death doesn't put things in perspective I don't know what does.  The loss of Pappy this year was bittersweet. Pappy was an amazing person.  He will be missed. He lived a full to the brim 98 years. There are no words.

End of the Year Autism Linky

The Hidden Workload of a Special Needs Parent

Cultivate a Good Life Episode #13 - Adventures in Parenting a Specially Able Child

High School Holds Adulting Day - I think a lot about skills we need to teach all children about living out in the world.

Christmas Linky Love

It only seemed appropriate that I shared this.

Charlie's Nutcracker

How to Draw a Nutcracker

My nutcracker drawing with Nose by Andre

In Praise of Scruffy Hospitality

Can Baking Reduce Stress and Anxiety

Wordy Wednesday aka what is on the BOARD!

This is a Clark Griswold quote from Christmas Vacation.

Linky Love

Popsicle Snowflakes - These flakes are one of my favorite things to hang in my front windows at Christmas time.  They are easy to make too.

Other People and Their Agendas - Teacher Tom - I love this and love me some Teacher Tom - So Good

Our Craiglist Christmas - Old post from Modern Mrs Darcy but still a good one.

Let Go to Make Room - Emily Freeman - a bit on the religious side but so good

Booking It December

I seem to read in procrastination of doing all the other things I should be doing.  Anyone else do that?  I am linking up with the Modern Mrs Darcy's Quick Lit. Check out what everyone else is reading too.

The Home for Unwanted Girls by Joanna Goodman  -This book is actually based on historical events.  In Canada orphanages were turned into mental institutions. The setting is 1950's Quebec. I thought this was interesting and compelling story but graphic in some places.

Sourdough or, Lois and Her Adventures in the Underground Market by Robin Sloan. This is a quirky book and I enjoyed it.  Lois a tech company employee is left some sourdough starter by two brothers who run a hole in the wall delivery restaurant. Lois has many adventures learning to make sourdough and life that the starter takes on. Robin Sloan also wrote Mr Penumbra's 24 hour Bookstore.You really should read this while eating sourdough bread. It made me want to try making sourdough again. You can read about my previous sourdough adventures here. The non fiction book 52 Loaves -A Half Baked Adventure by William Alexander would make an interesting book flight

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens was one of Reese Witherspoon's book club picks.  Kya is raised in the swamp and as a young girl is abandoned there as well. Kya grows to love the marshland. A man is found marshland dead suspicion turns to Kya. This had a twist ending.  It was a lovely book and a quick read. I would consider this one of my top reads of 2018.

Linky Love

No snow here yet in the Pacific Northwest but is dark.  Here are some links to chase away the dark.

20 Books to Cozy Up with this Winter - lots of great titles here - Beartown, Snow Falling on Cedars, and The Great Alone are all titles I have enjoyed from this list.

My Verison of the Christmas Car

How to Draw A Christmas Car - Sometimes we all need to create.  This tutorial is from Deep Space Sparkle

Advent Reading for the First Sunday of Advent - First Baptist Church -- Loveland, CO

December Daily - This is a great scrapbook project hosted by Ali Edwards to document each day in December

Wordy Wednesday

Well, I didn't have quite enough letters to fit a Mr Rogers quote

Often when you think
you're at the end of
something

You're at the
beginning of
something else

Mr Rogers

Linky Love

New Graffiti in our town

23 Tweets That Are Basically Like Free Therapy

Stress Might Lead to Memory Loss before 50

New Podcast to check out - COLD - This is about the Susan Powell case.  I listened to first episode. It is pretty interesting

November Reading

I am linking up with Modern Mrs Darcy.  Check out what everyone else is reading. My reading has picked up with the cooler weather.

The Assistants by Camille Perri is a quick chick lit read.  It about a assistant who fails to return a check for over payment from boss and instead uses it to pay off her student loans.  Another assistant finds out and things begin to snowball.  This is a good, entertaining, chick lit book. Maybe slightly implausible but love the girl power angle.

The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal - Got this pick off the Hot Picks table at the library.  Sometimes I think I have fatal attraction with this table at the library.

It begins with a phone call that Nora Watts has dreaded for fifteen years—since the day she gave up her newborn daughter for adoption. Bonnie has vanished. The police consider her a chronic runaway and aren’t looking for her, leaving her desperate adoptive parents to reach out to her birth mother as a last hope.

A biracial product of the foster system, transient, homeless, scarred by a past filled with pain and violence, and cursed with unnervingly dark eyes that absorb the light around them—and can pierce deep into a person’s soul—Nora knows intimately what happens to vulnerable girls on the streets. Caring despite herself, she sets out to find Bonnie with her mutt, Whisper, as her only companion. While she risks reopening wounds that have never really healed, she plunges into the darkness with little to protect her but her instincts and a freakish ability to detect truth from lies.

The search uncovers a puzzling conspiracy that leads Nora on a harrowing journey of deception and violence, from the gloomy rain-soaked streets of Vancouver to the icy white mountains of the Canadian interior, to the beautiful and dangerous island where she will face her most terrifying demon. All to save a girl she wished had never been born. - Amazon 

The setting is Vancouver, BC and I don't live far from the Canadian Border and Vancouver so I think this is what initially drew me to this book. It did keep me reading though I thought the author was trying to do a little too much with the plot.  The topics covered - Alcoholism, Racism, Adoption, Stem Cells

Without You, There is No Us by Suki Kim

This is a true story. It is Suki Kim's memoir about being a teacher to the North Korean Elite Children right before the end of Kim Jong-il's reign. Suki Kim was a journalist basically posing a teacher at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology with a Christian Missionary Group contracted to teach these children.  I found this fascinating look at the children's lives and the general life of North Koreans.

Paper Houses

The trend in Christmas decor is little lit up houses.  It got me to thinking about paper houses lit with battery operated tealights.  This could be the budget version of this trend. I made a few of these.  

The first ones I made didn't have the tissue paper in the window and door cut outs.  I prefer the ones with tissue paper as I don't like to see the tealights. These aren't too bad to put together but I am not sure I am completely satisfied. It it did feed my need to craft.

What You Need

copy paper - Pattern from HelloBee

tissue paper - got my at dollar tree

battery operated - dollar tree was out so I got my at Target - 2 lights for $1 - dollar spot

Scissors

Xacto Knife

Just One More Thing - Wordy Wednesday

I recently have been telling people to stop saying , "It's just one more thing...."  My husband told me that "Just One More Thing", is the Columbo response. But lately it is all the one more things seem to be piling up in a negative way. So, let's just say all the things. Because I have been on earth for a while, I know eventually things will look up.  Things can't stay at the bottom forever, right.  In my family, I like to think I am a positive thinker but this year has been particularly difficult.

Wordy Wednesday

Wordy Wednesday - Halloween

Here is my current letter board which I hung up near my front door.

Below is the letter board saying I had up at the beginning of October

Whatcom Falls Park

small falls at spillway from fishing pond

I had a chance to walk around Whatcom Falls park (Bellingham, WA).  We have been having some beautiful fall weather and I just love all the fall color. It was good to get out and walk with Mrs Epi. 

Accidental Sweet Potato Growing

I had attempted to grow sweet potatoes in the past. I couldn't get anything to sprout.  However I left some sweet potatoes too long hanging out in a plastic bag and low and behold I have some sprouts.  I have heard it is near impossible to grow sweet potatoes here in the Pacific Northwest but I figured it was a sign when I had them growing on my counter.

I planted my slips (cuttings from sweet potato) in some containers on my deck.  In order to keep the soil warmer, I cut up ziploc bags and laid over the surface to help with heat retention.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised at my harvest.  I really wasn't sure if I would get anything. I got quite a few little ones.  I am going to mark this as a success.  Now I have to cure.  I have a couple of ideas. Sweet Potatoes have to be cured (heated up with humidity) so the starches turn into sugar. 

Helpful Links
10 tips
Growing Sweet Potatoes in Pacific Northwest
4 Simple Tips for Curing Sweet Potatoes
Growing Sweet Potatoes - Even in the North

I 

Trapped in Transition

This is my son's last year in the transition program at the local high school.  For those of you not in the know, a transition program is what local public schools offer for those 18-21 who are disable and provide services. Their high school diploma is held until they turn 21.

Today I go to my son's last IEP, individual education plan.  Today is actually the anniversary of my son's first evaluation back in 2002.  That is where it all started. I have been doing some reflecting or aka ruminating.  The very first IEP I ever attended for my son had at least 8 to 10 people at it.  The one today has 4 and that includes myself and my son. I have literally been to 20 IEPs.  Sometimes these were raw emotional exercises and other times I felt like the right thing was done.  There is no doubt in my mind that these inflicted trauma on my family.  Many times I was told indirectly my parenting wasn't good enough, my son was too much work, and many more times than I can count my son had to listen to how he wasn't enough. But yet we persisted. 

One thing I noticed recently as I apply for government services for my son the difference in the mentality  between schools and government.  Schools always think they can make kids more able.  They are all about progress. Government services only want to know how disabled someone is and have no desire to seek progress for them. If progress is made, participants are penalized often and frequently. Both of these approaches are horribly flawed.

Wordy Wednesday- Chalkboard

I made my little chalkboard with eek.  I think it turned out great. My chalkboard is just a piece of scrap lumber sprayed with chalkboard paint.  I used regular chalkboard chalk.

It's Batty Up in Here - Lighted Bats

My super handy husband and youngest son whipped up some lighted bats. This project is from Rogue Engineer. The cut out the rough outline of the bat with a band saw.  Then used the router to get the precise edge. My husband had made a bat pattern out of MDF.  That is what he attached the rough cut bat too.

ready for paint

We used a 10 string battery operated lights from the dollar store. The flashing was the smallest roll we could find $11 and we had the spray paint and plywood.  We used staples to attach the flashing on first bat and then switched to screws for the remaining bats. We hung them in our front windows with our lit up eyes

October Reading

I am linking up with Modern Mrs Darcy's Quick Lit.  Check out what everyone else is reading.

My reading has slowed to a trickle but I did manage to squeeze out one book.

Walk to Beautiful by Jimmy Wayne is his story about his life and his connection to foster care.  Jimmy Wayne is also a country music star and just as his career was about to take off when he decided to walk from Nashville to Arizona to raise awareness about foster care and those who were about to age out the system.  I love Jimmy Wayne's heart. Jimmy Wayne was lucky to be taken in by an older couple in his teenage years.  It saved his life. Jimmy had this to say about them, " Bea and Russell didn't talk about loving God and loving people, they just did it."

Podcast Love

In the past couple of years, I have grown to love podcasts.  It's not too late to get in on the podcast listening bandwagon.

Podcast 101 - New to podcasts this is the 101 for listening.  I usually listen from their individual websites from my computer.

Serial - loving Season 3 and I also listened to Season 1
This American Life - probably the podcast series that got me into listening to podcasts
Last Seen - investigation about an art heist that happened 28 years ago Boston
Reply All - they investigate internet things and they are also very funny and knowledgeable

*** my favorite scrapbooker Becky Higgins is launching a podcast tomorrow with her friend also named Becky- Cultivating A Good Life  I cannot wait

Halloween Tradition - Haunted House Craft

At the beginning of October, I did some emergency early morning babysitting.  I love this craft because I always get 100% participation.  I have yet to have a kid not want to do this. I know it is total sticker sneeze but even taking stickers off the sheet is a fine motor activity.  There is also usually a good conversation about what is scary. I think with older kids you could do a lot to extend this activity.

materials
haunted house template - I made mine in photoshop
dollar store stickers
black construction paper for house
colored paper for background paper
white colored pencil
exacto knife - older kids can do the cut out of windows with supervision - 10 plus
crayons - neon colors for embellishment

Additional Resources

template- Sarah Jane has a more detailed haunted house template I have used in the past
Draw a Haunted House - Art Projects for Kids

September Reading

I am linking up to the Modern Mrs Darcy's Quick Lit. Check out what everyone else is reading.

I seem to be stuck in a golden age non fiction reading binge.  Earlier this year I read the Big Burn which is our county's reading book for 2019. Well, I ended up reading, The Last Castle by Denise Kiernan about the Biltmore.  I thought it was fascinating and because I read the Big Burn some of the big historical figures of the time also were big influencers on the forest surrounding the Biltmore such as Gifford Pinchot. George Vanderbilt built this massive house but it was really his wife and later their son in law John Cecil which allowed it to be the nation's largest privately owned home. I haven't had the opportunity to visit the Biltmore.

I guess my reading this month could also be summarized as books about really really rich people. I can not lie, I read books about the rich. I read Crazy Rich Asians. This book didn't disappoint.  I can see how this could made into a movie. I haven't seen the movie yet. Anyone seen the movie?

Autism Linky

Hey Washington Residents at long last the Able Accounts for Washington State have launched - Check out your options

Dear School; Stop Calling Me to Pick Up My Kid

Grocery Worker lets Autistic Teen Help Stock Shelves

Coding and Autism

This Optical Illusion Could Help Scientists Detect Autistic Traits

Senators: Do More To Help Disable Americans Be Employed- more on Able accounts and letting more people able to have these accounts

Calendula's lots of Calendula's

I decided to order some different varieties of Calendula's from Floret Flower Seeds.  I already grow the orange variety of Calendula's thanks to Nonna for sharing her seeds.  I tried "Pink Surprise". I didn't realize it was variety that is just tinged with a pink color.

I also tried "Bronze Beauty". So far this is one of my favorites.  This is also pretty prolific as well.

Lastly I tired " Ivory Princess"

What I Read August

I am linking up to Modern Mrs Darcy's Quick Lit.  Check out what everyone else is reading.

Yes, it is a Danielle Steel book - Fall From Grace.  Sometimes I need predictable and this one had a decent story line about a return to work widow trying to get back into the fashion industry.  When my life gets stressful I just want to read something easy and doesn't require to much work on my part.  Anyone else like that?  I guess I am an escapist. IS THIS A LITERARY SIN?

The Book of Essie has had a lot of buzz.  Essie, the main character,  is part of reality show based on her religious family.  But is the show really reality especially when Essie becomes pregnant out of wedlock.  Will she expose her family secrets?  I admit I kinda enjoy watching Counting On and Bringing Up Bates and there is some food for thought in there about these kinds of shows as well. I thought it was an interesting read.

The Last Suppers by Mandy Mikulencuk
This was an impulse pick up at the library. It is about the cook,Ginny Polk, who serves the last suppers for the inmates on Louisiana Death Row in the 1950s. This is a work of total fiction.  There is a lot about complicated relationships with her mother, father who had been a prison guard and the current warden. I thought it was a quick interesting read.  It had some surprising twists. 

Wordy Wednesday

Here was my latest letter board message

Summer Linky Love

Rolex Watch Lost 20 Years Ago Recovered by a Geocacher

A Small House Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for Sale - Wouldn't be cool to own this place

Brain Study Finds People Dumber During a Heat Wave - this explains so much