What I've Been Up To

I've been working. I've been knitting, and biking, and trying to get The Cupcake to school on time (Kindergarten!), and homeschooling The Biscuit (unschooling actually, which turns out to take more time & effort on my part but scares people), and wiping noses and bottoms, and connecting with hilarious people and grumpy family on Facebook, meeting tons of Bikey Friends on Twitter, and doing dishes, and laundry. Oh, and I've been helping with the accounting side of a wonderful new magazine... which I don't have time to read myself. The guilt I feel when any one of these plates that I have spinning crashes to the floor is overwhelming and leaves me in a depressed place that does no good; the depression is not so huge I can't get moving after a bit of a wallow, but it still leads to more of those spinning plates falling. Here I am, trying now to catch them before they shatter because that’s all I can manage today.

And now you know why I haven't posted.

If I have more time this weekend I will add photos to this. Otherwise you can see some on my Flickr stream.

Come Buddy Walk with us, please?

Our Buddy Walk is a fundraiser for the local (Oregon & SW Washington) Down syndrome parent and self-advocate group, NWDSA. They are a great group that we were happy to find when we moved to Portland. Even though our son is 6 so is technically a year too old, we still go to their Open Arms playgroup because we love the people so much. If you would like to donate to our team, Biscuit Patrol, you can get there through tinyurl.com/BiscuitPatrol2011.

However, we'd rather see you there that day than have your money. For me the Buddy Walk is about building community. Coming out that day says to me that you accept people with Down syndrome as part of your world. They are your neighbors; WE are your neighbors. You can register to walk (which can be done for free if that's an issue) by following that link then clicking "My Team Page"  above our photo, then clicking "Join Our Team" and following the instructions.

[I want to apologize right here for the convoluted process required on that website. I have no control over how Kintera sets things up and no control over NWDSA's choice of Kintera to run things. I've struggled with it for years, but that's just how it is. Making that custom TinyURL was the best I could come up with to make navigation semi-reasonable.]


If you aren't in the SW Washington/Oregon area, feel free to throw a donation our way. The money will be well-spent! One of the many good things they do is to provide packets to families who are new to the area or have just received a diagnosis. And those snacks at playgroup don't buy themselves. :-)

Another option is to find a Buddy Walk in your area. Go to Find a Buddy Walk Near You to do just that. There's a U.S. map, links to list the walks by state, and a link to International Walks if you aren't in the U.S. Wherever you are you can walk "by our side" and show that people who happen to experience life with Down syndrome are not invisible to you.

Thanks for reading.

Unfriended

I woke up this morning to find that I'd been unfriended by someone on Facebook. I assume that's what happened anyway because I went to see if he responded to my comment on his post and he just doesn't exist on Facebook at all. I think that means that he's blocked me from seeing him, not that he's deleted his account. That would be silly.

He posted something controversial about a VERY controversial topic. I happen to have another friend who just had a tragic experience that (I thought) put this controversial topic in a new light. So I commented. Guess I should have held my tongue instead of trying to stand up for a woman who had just been hurt?

Don't worry that you can't tell me what I should or shouldn't have done. I can't say any more without revealing more than I am comfortable with about my actual friend (who I've only met online). I felt she didn't need to have this bullying status flying around Facebook to potentially land in her news feed without someone standing in her corner. So I stood. And someone that I casually knew in real life years ago decided that he couldn't stand for me to see his statuses and he no longer wanted to see mine. Not much of a loss, except that it bothers me any time a person who claims to be a Christian, to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, is intolerant. He was not tolerant or considerate of the feelings a others. He was harsh and cruel and I don't think he knew it. I guess this post is just because I wanted the conversation to continue, he cut it off, and I can't resist getting in the last word.

No, I just want to write/post more. That's the ticket. Heh.

I Love My Bike

I haven't written in ages and I have so many reasons why that I'm no longer sure exactly why I'm not writing. None of them has a large enough piece of the pie that it stands out as The Reason; there are so many reasons that I don't even have the energy to list them. So I'm not going to. I'm just going to dive in and start writing from now without catching you up. Anything that's important will come up again.

I LOVE MY BIKE.

Seriously, I changed my photo on Twitter from my kids and me to a photo of my bike. Let me try to put it into perspective: imagine your dream car. Not the car that you think you might be able to afford and that would be practical, but your DREAM car. It's thousands of dollars that you just cannot spend. You do not have it. And then, one year later, you've been saving and saving and saving and you find a used one for only 2/3 the price. You can buy it now. You can pay cash. Sure it's an older model, there have been two model years since then, but it's a beauty. So you do it. You have your dream.

Now imagine that your dream car makes it possible to take your kids to the grocery store. It's not a small personal conveyance. Your Ferrari or Porsche or whatever-it-is can hold your kids and all the stuff you could want to carry quite easily and it is STILL a dream to drive.

Now maybe you can understand why and how much I love my bike.

Still More Serendipitous Neighboring Tweets

Yippee! The Chilean miners have all reached the surface. Good news via Twitter. Also, kinda funny that these 2 tweets were right next to each other in my stream.

On a side note, I found a new screen capture program so I don't have to use Alt-Print Screen anymore. It's called Awesome Screenshot and you can find it at http://awesomescreenshot.com/ -- Enjoy!

Let the Homeschooling Begin!

Last night I tweeted this in an effort to save myself some googling:

(As an aside, since their Evil Agreement with Verizon, I'm not going out of my way to capitalize or avoid using the word "google" as a verb.)

This morning I found these fantabulous tweets waiting for me:

I love Twitter, I love Portland, I think I'm going to love homeschooling. I think having goals to shoot for will give me some purpose instead of just vague "learning" -- although I don't want to miss out on opportunities for random learning that pop up. I'm very excited to start down this path, and feel SO MUCH BETTER than I have since May when I was ambushed with a Kindergarten IEP. I bet I haven't blogged about that. I think  I should, but no time today. I have laundry to fold while we wait for an ugly storm cloud to pass so we can go to the store. I wonder how many lessons will naturally happen during the trip to the store if I'm paying attention to counting them?

Best Comment Ever?

I regularly read The Bloggess and occasionally see comments from Jamie, The Very Worst Missionary. Finally a post title made me click through and read her blog. It's not that it was a supremely compelling title, it was actually the "y'all" that caught my ear/eye. And it turns out it's a great post, funny and insightful at the same time. You should go read it. Then I came across this comment from Erica (my apologies for not being able to link directly to the comment):

...I am SO. FREAKIN'. HAPPY FOR YOU! ABOUT YOUR HAMBURGER! Good God in the hot tub, praise be to the Lord Jesus Christ who died to set us free from the law that we may have cheese and bacon on the flesh of a cow that has been flame broiled, I praise his holy name.

It never clicked for me that keeping Kosher means no cheeseburgers, and certainly no bacon cheeseburgers, but of course it does. This has been making me laugh for days. I thought that made it worthy of blogging, if only so I can come back and laugh more.

(Edited for a typo)