Ready for some R and R!!!

We are heading to the beach in the morning...just for the weekend. We are going to Charleston my FAVORITE place besides here in the mountains! Lots of beach...lots of exploring the historic downtown....maybe a ghost walk....maybe a carriage tour. I can't wait. I would be in bed but I'm finishing up some last minute laundry.

Incase my swap buddies are reading....I'm hoping to get the last item/s for the swap. I'm bound to find what I am looking for in Charleston!!!

washcloth swap

I'm gearing up to start sewing. I am in a swap with Adrienne from http://www.someofakind.blogspot.com/ and Mary from http://www.hookedonneedles.com/ . This is my first craft swap and I'm admittedly nervous hahahha. I have a plan but I think first I will make myself one to make sure it will turn out the way I want. Maybe if these bloggers see this they will give me some hints on colors they like??? :) This is going to be FUN!!!

Grace in Small things

I just realized it has been a long since I have posted one of these. Most of them were when we were going through a lot of hardships! shame on me for not doing it sooner.

1. a nice relaxing hike at my favorite place locally....eating wild blueberries on the way to the top. :)

2. Being able to pay for our bills and get caught up.

3. A wonderful, caring, patient husband....with his family and the client he works with.

4. WONDERFUL grandparents for my kids visiting. The are loved so unconditionally. Gma has been sitting with Z for hour drawing....I never knew MIL could draw so well! FIL and MIL being soooo patient with A~man....yet strict...a wonderful combination. The kids are going to miss them so much! (me too!)

5. ok this sounds trivial....but an AWESOME watch dog...kids dog....my faithful compainion. WHO barked his head off (this is unusual) last night to watch out for us.

the honey moon is over.....

with hubbys new client that is. IMHO he has been spoiling the guy to keep him happy. He always tends to do this with his clients. He is a good man with a good heart. After awhile though he realizes he has to buckle down and set limits. This young man is 21....I guess it is ok to post his diagnosis because I'm not going to post his name. He has high functioning autism, bipolar, RAD, ADHD. He is a really great guy and can fix about anything that needs fixing...knows all about botany...he is really an encyclopedia of knowledge. He gets along well with our 7 yr old dd but I would never leave her alone with him. A~man rubs him the wrong way and you know why? he is too much like him. He is an adult version of my son honestly. Minus the Bipolar.

This week he dh got him some fireworks. He is a bit obsessed with fireworks. All day on the 4th he was lighting noisy ones....every 30 seconds. I let this go on all morning and mid afternoon I nicely asked him to stop until the evening. Later he apologized very nicely.

Next day. DH bought him MORE! He did them all morning and come about 1:00 I had HAD it. I was polite but firmly told him to STOP. Earlier our neighbor across the street had nicely asked if he was about done too. What does he do? He goes across our street and starts lighting them. I looked at dh and said "I asked him to stop". DH goes out there and asks if he heard me ask him to stop. He then says "well I"m not on your property". DH (lol) then says well you are disturbing the peace and if you do not stop I will call the police.

He got all pouty. Well this young man has night terrors and several times a week another worker stays at the other house with him. Normally they do not last long if you leave him alone. Well he tried to attack the worker (a woman) and was yelling at this woman to take him to OUR house because....welll....I won't say it all but he wanted to do something harmful to ds and I. She called dh and he went over there to relieve her and by that time he was back in bed. He was asleep the whole time we are convinced. Scared the CRAP out of me though!

The next day he was his gentle, helpful, talkative self. He did not remember a thing and when dh told him what he said and did it made him spiral down. It bothered him so much what he was trying to do and was saying. He now has an appt with his therapist to talk about it with dh along. I was unease the first couple days around him but he was as nice/polite as can be....just really down wondering why he did all that. Mental illness sucks eh? He is over attatched now to dh and sees A`man and I as a threat for attention he is not getting. He has no problem with Z but she is quiet.

Onto other things....:) I need to finish my quilt....it's so close....I need to start crafting again. BUT I have been doing a LOT of picture taking and started back drawing(hoping to enter something in the fair)

Today we went to the vegetable stand and the young man that waited on us (jr in hs) asked Z if she was glad it was summer and that school was out. I WISH I had a photo of the look on her face. She said uhhh we homeschool...to be polite. Even though technically we are taking July off this child never stops... she is always looking for new things to learn and sometimes has mama looking for the answers to her questions on the computer. Her occupation interests? Firegirl/entemologist/Vet/scientist....the list goes on. I LOVE homeschooling.

Life is good.....but stressful.

Wordless Wednesday

oh what a night....

I will only put this in my blog....no where else I go online...although I have awesome online friends. Unless a person has been around such things as mental illness, developmental disabilities, autism, prader-willi syndrome...my stories would not mean what they do.

Tonight we had a date and hubby arranged for someone else to stay with the young man in our rental. That halfway fell through as the lady came there sick with absessed teeth and hubby sent her home when we got home from dinner. Before that and before coming home we got a call from the babysitter. She is a mature lady that has worked in childcare for eons that likes to sit for us on occasion. Well....to make a LONG story short...somewhere A-man found matches (not sure where...we do not smoke regularly....maybe in a camping bag?) he lit it. He burnt himself and then showed the sitter. Well she was thinking that she only saw the last two matches in the match book so she goes looking for the rest in his room. All hell broke loose. Not sure if it was because she was moving his stuff or what but he became escalated to a level that hubby and I only see once in a blue moon. He became violent. He doesn't do that with us. She had to restrain him (it was safely) as he was in danger to himself and her...she is a tiny lady.

Needless to say no daycamp tomorrow. His worker there is new and I"m not going to chance it escalating to that level again and him getting kicked out or hurting someone.

I'm thinking of maybe two possibilities of triggers for this behavior. He takes med for ADHD and for OCD issues. Last week the dev ped increased his OCD meds....although we have been doing it gradually. It is a med that could have an odd affect. Also today he had chocolate...and quite a bit. GEESH I am normally such a hard butt about food issues...and the prader-willi syndrome. At 4H they ahd this yummy chocolate dessert and I couldn't say no....I thought awww just this once. IN the past he has had bad reactions to chocolate...what was I thinking???? I have boycotted RED 40 for similiar reactions...I guess it's time to do the same with chocolate and treat it like an allergy.

I beleive the Lord is shaping me to become what he wants....but sometimes it's a painful process...

a mama brag......

This is so thick in bragging you just might not want to read. ;) Z has been reading....REALLY reading since midyear of kindy age. She is now finishing up 2nd grade. (homeschooling) Our library has a summer reading program set up to encourage kids to read all summer. I really do not need to encourage her to read.....sometimes I have to encourage her to go watch a video if you can believe that. She is almost 8 and reads between 2-4 hours a day with no prompting. This amounts to about a chapter book a day. (Boxcar/Bobsey twin/mystery type) Well.... today I wish I could have taken a picture of the librarians face when Z brought her papers back after two weeks. She had twice as many spaces filled as she needed to, to get all of the prizes. So she got a tattoo;), a little bristley toy, a hacky sack, and she got to pick out a new book to keep. Gosh I wish I had a picture of her face....oh so proud and confident!!!