Cultural Revolutionary

The photos below are of Tony in his SpiderMan sunglasses.

Yep, I am stealing this post’s title from Martha Stewart. I have had sort of an odd couple of weeks. We’ve moved into the new house but, I have been so nasty sick that it’s unreal. I even had to go to the doctor and get pumped full of antibiotics and such to kill all of the nasty germs that wouldn’t seem to go away without the “real” drugs. So, in between coughing up my lungs and feeling like my head is going to explode, I haven’t gotten as much done as I would have liked to have. It’s all OK though. I am happy. That’s right… happy. So, here is my current list of “good things” (aka the things that are making me happy lately).

1. Tony being able to move into his new room. He loves it. He has all of his furniture and all of his things back in their proper places. His Spider Man walls “protect him” (according to him) and even as much as I claim to hate blatant and rampant commercialism aimed at children, I am happy that he loves Spidey so much. We finished Tony’s room completely before anything else was done and that was a smart move. He is so much more at ease with his “world” than I have ever seen it. In fact, so much so that I have even began to call him the “N” word- NORMAL. Of course, I know that he will always be autistic, but damn, I never thought life could be this good for him.

2. Having my washer and dryer back… along with 100% functioning other necessities. I know I am spoiled. I get that. But, it’s hard to keep a family going when you are used to certain conveniences and then have them taken away. We spent three months without most of our belongings. Now, we have everything back. Yeah, some of it’s still in boxes. But, it’s at our disposal and I am ashamed to say (in some ways) that makes me happy.

3. Sara Lee, the cats, and the chickens all having their respective spaces back. Sara Lee now has a HUGE backyard to explore when she’s outside. The chickens have the best, and likely safest, coop ever (thanks to my Dad for fabricating parts of it and setting it up the first time and Rick for moving it and setting it up the final time). The cats also have a safe outdoor enclosure that keeps them out of harm’s way but still able to explore and enjoy. I enjoy seeing my pets happy.

4. Big bath tubs. Once again, this is one of those things that maybe I shouldn’t be proud of or even excited about. Rick has been calling me a hypocrite and comparing me to Al Gore (you know… the whole conserve as I say do and not as I do thing). But, I am OK with admitting my weaknesses. I love, love, love my massive new tub. And I love my huge new hot water heater. Of course, it’s wasteful. I know this. At least we researched and got the most energy efficient model available. And I love it.

5. Morgan. My kids are the greatest. Really, they are. Morgan has been doing some not so great things lately… slacking off in school, not studying as much for the spelling bee as she should have, etc. But, she is amazing. I think we’ve worked through her issues (there are so very few of them) and she’s back on track. She was the runner-up for the regional spelling bee this year and she should have won. But, honestly, she didn’t study much at all so she didn’t deserve to win. She learned her lesson though and I’ll bet that next year will find us back at the National’s in DC. She did win grand champion at her school’s science fair last night with a kick butt project on organic and inorganic fertilizers. She worked really hard on her project this year for MONTHS and she deserved this win. We were so proud.

6. Having Rick home rocks. We’re not sure how long he’ll be home for this time but we do know that after he goes to sea again for 5 weeks that we’ll be on more of a set 5 week at sea and 5 week home schedule. In the meantime, I am just hoping to keep him here a few more weeks and finish getting the house squared away before he leaves again. It’s really nice to have someone around that knows me better than almost anyone on Earth. It’s so… ummm… I hesitate to say the word again because we are so damned atypical…. but it’s normal.

7. Kisses and cuddling. Seriously… Nothing else… Don’t worry about getting TMI from my blog. After years in situations with too little affection, kisses and cuddling are really nice. Of course, I guess this kind of goes along with #6!

8. Acceptance. I still learn each and every day about accepting myself and those around me for everything we are as well as everything we aren’t. I am finally starting to appreciate people in my life for their good AND bad attributes. I know that this sounds so idealistic and possibly not very realistic. But, since learning (or at least starting to learn) to merely follow the old adage about changing the things I can and accepting the things I can’t, I am becoming a lot happier person in general. One of my oldest and dearest friends told me back in January that he wonders why I “keep fighting”. Yes, part of me is the fighter and that part will not change. But, I am learning to pick my battles.

Somehow I am still able to smile today. Granted, I would have every right to be grumpy. I got very little sleep last night. The renovations on the new house are over budget. Morgan is still sick with some strange virus. My close friend who is acting as my general contractor is leaving for a week long cruise on Saturday (lucky bastard) and there are still lots of small things that need to be completed before we can move in. Unfortunately, work will slow substantially while he’s gone.

But, it’s Valentine’s Day. As I type, Tony is having his first Valentine’s party at school. He was ecstatic about the mere suggestion of a party. It was my “job” to bring the candy for the party and I even resisted the urge to buy the healthy stuff and loaded him up with the good junk. After filling out 28 or so little Valentines for his classmates (some of whom have names like Amariona and several others that I can’t pronounce or spell so it took me multiple attempts) and then folding them, adding the Spiderman tattoo to each one, and lastly sealing them with a heart shaped sticker, I was exhausted. But, I was still happy. After all, my severely autistic kid has now been fully mainstreamed and is pretty indistinguishable from his typically developing peers. There were times along this journey that I had no idea if I would ever get to see him enjoy something as simple as a childhood party. So, I smiled as I made out each and every card and as he told me about his “girlfriends” Valerie and Sabrina.

The reason I slept so little last night couldn’t be attributed to anything bad either. I was sleeping soundly when I heard my cell phone alerting me that I had a new text message. A quick glance at my watch told me it was around 2am. Of course, there are very few people who would text me at that time. And even fewer that I wouldn’t be pissed about receiving a text from at 2am. Luckily, it was a Valentines message from Rick. He’s still in Norway for a few more days and therefore he’s still 6 hours ahead of me time wise. His text showed that he cares enough to make sure he wished me a Happy Valentine’s Day before he started his busy day. That means a lot! Maybe next year he’ll be home and I can have all of the traditional Valentine’s Day treats (candy and champagne come to mind since both are consumable and Compact friendly). At the very least though, he thought of me first thing in the morning and that’s as important as anything.

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This is a great article. Once again, it shows that having it “all” might not be the most mentally healthy thing for us….
We so often get our priorities out of order.

http://www.aish.com/societyWork/society/Its_Already_Broken.asp

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/08/10/18295990.php

Yes, I admit it, I am a Wal-Mart hater. Some of the other big-box retailers are less bad but I would still prefer supporting local businesses (see the locavore post from a couple of days ago).

The city of Chicago is FINALLY requiring big-box retailers to pay their employees a REAL living wage. Of course, the Wal-Mart execs. are throwing all sorts of spin on the new ordinance….

Read the article below….

CNN Article

World eBook Fair

1. Thumbs up to American Bar Association for faulting Bush for the fact that he CONTINUALLY disregards certain parts of bills which he signs into law. NY Times Article.

2. Thumbs up to the Path To Freedom family (see link in our loved links section). They were featured recently in Natural Home and Garden Magazine in an article about their urban sustainable homestead. I never get tired of reading about them. A PDF of the article is loacted here: Pasadena Paradise Natural Home and Garden Article.

3. The Hundred Mile Diet appeals to lots of us that are starting to consider ourselves “locavores”. Awhile back, I found this pledge on the a website that I unfortunately can no longer recall that explains the locavore lifestyle better than I could ever hope to:
:: Locavore Pledge ::
If not FROM BACKYARD then locally produced.
If not LOCALLY PRODUCED, then Organic.
If not ORGANIC, then Family farm.
If not FAMILY FARM, then Local business.
If not a LOCAL BUSINESS, then Fair Trade.