Christmas

Christmas Newsletter 09

Psalms
Chapter 121

1
1 A song of ascents. 2 I raise my eyes toward the mountains. From where will my help come?
2
My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth.
3
God will not allow your foot to slip; your guardian does not sleep.
4
Truly, the guardian of Israel never slumbers nor sleeps.
5
3 The LORD is your guardian; the LORD is your shade at your righthand.
6
By day the sun cannot harm you, nor the moon by night.
7
The LORD will guard you from all evil, will always guard your life.
8
The LORD will guard your coming and going both now and forever.

Another year of challenge and change, and we know that God was with us through it all and continues to be.  It was a strange year of ups and downs, but God brought us through and still continues to.  We do praise Him and continue to pray for wisdom.

As I wrote last year, Christopher went into a group home in September of 2008.  Though he had a rocky start, things seemed to even out later in the later fall and winter, and we thought everything would be fine.  However, as he seemed to scream out more and not sleep, talk of his being asked to leave the group home began to become more active, and by August or September we had a solid decision by the group home management company that Christopher would have to leave.

We looked at some group homes in the area in September or October, but none seemed more able to meet his needs than the wonderful-seeming one that he was leaving.  Most of the staff was very caring, and it was with heavy hearts that we said goodbye on November 1st.  We weren’t really sure what to do, but our early plan has been to share care with Christopher’s grandparents, Roger’s parents.  He has been in our custody since November 1st and mostly he has been staying with Roger’s parents, where we have him some of the weekends and take him on outings and appointments.

A glimmer of hope is that he does actually seem happier and also seems to be sleeping a LITTLE better, though he still often stays up all night — 2-3 times a week, usually.  He also just now (last week) obtained his old aide back who had him in 04, Vicky, whom he loved to be with.  He also is still attending the school system he started last year, that works with autism and seems to have a good plan for Christopher.  My mom has also watched him some in our home, after school.

We also are still considering a school for the deaf/autistic disorder that is in Florida and still may be looking into that.  But for the moment we are trying to still reach a sense of routine and normalcy and figure out how to best meet his needs as an extended family.  He is a senior and will still most likely attend the school he is at until he’s 22.  We will also be seeking what adult workshops, etc. he will be attending, and that is an exciting time of exploration.

                                           Colleen with Uncle Al’s dog

As a sophomore Colleen is now observing classes at the vocational center, and she hopes to attend in the graphics program.  Hard to believe she’ll be a junior next year.  She has been wishfully speaking of driver’s ed but with her birthday all the way in May we feel this will be a junior, not sophomore, activity!  She is ready, but we’re not!!  Of course she is still creating her artwork and videos, working to keep grades up, and is hoping to get her first summer job this summer.  She also attended another anime convention this past spring.

Colleen is planning another holiday party this year with pizza and friends over, as she had a blast last year with one of those at Christmas and another at her birthday (where she and her friends slept out in a tent out back).  Colleen has also been taking care of a fishtank full of goldfish, and just recently obtained 3 tadpoles in another tank.  Along with all this we also adopted her a cat recently; we had had a cat earlier in the year but sadly Stella died of cancer suddenly (she was a stray and we didn’t realize how sick she was until her 2nd visit to the vet for vaccinations).  Sophie so far is very healthy and will have her first maintenance visit at the vet in January.

                                           Sophie, our cat

Ryan’s speech is really growing by leaps and bounds this year.  He has not been successfully wearing his current hearing aids, but we will be soon ordering new ones.  I hope we can get a different style that he’ll be comfortable wearing, and I’m sure his speech will be getting even better.  Right now he is in love with the Cars movie and is watching it many times a day.  Our county awarded him a new computer in the fall, and he is greatly enjoying it.  He loves www.Starfall.com and also loves to watch Youtube videos about the alphabet, Leappad, and, of course, Cars.

He got to see a few movies in the theater this year, Madadascar II and also Veggie Tales, the search for Noah’s Umbrella.  He loved it!  We hope to take him again soon and can’t wait for Cars II to come out but hear that’s in 2011 so we have a little wait!

                                                                                      Ryan swinging at the Potato Festival last fall.

 

This was the year where Roger and Dorene first attempted to take business trips together, as Roger’s out of-town county duties grew and it was sensible to share the work between two people.  We went on these trips in February, April, July, and end of September, and are about to go again the 2nd week of January.  This is one of the mountain views we saw in July and September, where we took a side drive away from Waynesburg, Pennsylvania (one of our courthouses) and discovered the beautiful world of Deep Creek Lake, Maryland.

In a very large coincidence, we discovered after a friend wrote to us after seeing our blog pictures that she and her husband LIVE there, and thus we were able to meet them for dinner in that town in September.  We hope to do this now every year or two incorporated into our business trip.

We have both been thinking again of returning to school, where I was thinking of returning in the spring semester and Roger perhaps in the fall.  I actually signed up for a class towards my Associates of Arts degree and will be starting on Fridays starting 1/22 at Lakeland with my first class in 22 years.  I have approximately eight classes to take to get my Assoc. of Arts, and this class I start with, that fits into my schedule, is Comparative Religions.  So it shall be interesting!

I have decided to study Speech and Language Pathology with an eventually transfer to Cleveland State towards a master, as I would like to be a speech therapist in the schools.  Roger and I would both like to work with the deaf/autistic population, including our own sons, and Roger is still deciding what major he would like to have (possibly deafness captioning).

In the meantime, we are continuing with our present careers of transcription and court research which we do enjoy very much.  My main client at this point is a firm that assigns me cases about Immigration deportees; it is very interesting and plentiful work!

I had the enjoyment this year of being contacted to fill in as a sub at my first law firm where I worked in ’88-94 and ’02-03, while the head attorney’s secretary goes on vacation or is out on any extended break.  That has been nice extra money and also a chance to see old friends and have a change of scenery.  I worked for a few days in January, February, April (I think?) and quite a bit in July/August, then again in early December.  I’m supposed to work in March again, for about a week.

We just continue to work and pray and live in the hope and goal of helping our family as much as we can while still enjoying each other and doing our best with whatever we are doing.  We did get to go away on some outings this year, and I will close with some pictures from these.  A blessed holiday season to you and yours.

Our beach outing, last summer.  Paula came with us and we also brought Colleen and Brenda who were swimming.

 

Fourth of July parade, Fairport.

                                                                                 Fourth of July picnic with Rick and Nancy and kids at the park

That was Chris’s 1 sleepover during this 14-month stay at the group home – he slept all night for us —

Our first look at mountainous Maryland in July.

Humphries reunion – Gayle & Craig’s dog loved Colleen!

 

Colleen at her summer camp that she attended with Ashleigh.

Eric’s graduation party – we were so happy Chris had a good time there.

Ryan loved the rope swing there!

 

Outing with Ryan the day we saw Veggietales, went to the beach, and had pizza out in Madison.

Fish we obtained in May —

Kitty in September.  This is Stella but she did pass away in October.

Beautiful neighborhood flowers

Grandma with us at the fair

Fall leaf-burning festivities!  (I’m in the leaves, yes)

Thanksgiving dinner and Chris, Papa, and Grandma’s birthday party.

At Christmas World, and afterwards we had Spaghetti dinners.

Our Christmas party, with Chris, Gayle, Chuck, and Rick & Nancy, Ashleigh & Nick

EMAIL: transcribing.mom@gmail.com

EMAIL: typealign@att.net

EMAIL (Rog) thedodger1@att.net

BLOG:NEWEST – http://criscollrjblog.blogspot.com/I decided to move my blog from WordPress.com to blogger.com as my other new blogs are at Blogger.  So far as of 12/22/09 I have moved one year of the six years contained; the rest are on the blog following.

(2020 – above blog has no content)

BLOG: 2009, most of the year – http://criscollrjblog.wordpress.com/ – intermediate blog that I copied everything into when my WordPress.org blog was closed (www.criscollrj.com/blog, now closed) when I didn’t renew my domain at that time.  Will probably just leave up as a backup.

(2020 – this above blog has content to about 2009)

LEGAL TRANSCRIPTION BLOG, 2009 – http://type-align.blogspot.com/  All about how I got into legal transcription and tips I think of as I go.

(2020 – this blog still exists — it has been imported into our newer domain (back again, had before) www.line-bright.com and all updates will be on the line-bright one.

AUTISM LESSONS BLOG, 2009 – http://autismlessons.blogspot.com/  New blog where I am writing about the things we’re learned through the years about autism and deafness. 

2020 – this was referred to in a prior post and I couldn’t find the blog.  Knew I had moved all the posts into criscollrj.com  Neat to see the blog now, though — pretty background!

PICTURES: http://www.flickr.com/photos/criscollrj/

HOME PAGE: www.criscollrj.com – home

FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com – search for Dorene Enea Humphries and contact to be added.

BUSINESS BLOG/INFO: http://line-brightservices.web.officelive.com/default.aspx.  This (replacing line-bright.com, where I also did not continue to renew the domain) is the area where we will be explaining more about both of our businesses, summarizing my legal transcription (which will be more in detail on my legal trans blog, above) and discussing Roger’s court research position.

(2020 – line-bright.com is back)

Roger, Dorene, Christopher,

Colleen & Ryan

 

autism, children, Christmas, health, life, organizing, Weather

I never posted my 08 goals–

So thought I’d post here. I will then look over them over the next week and make up my 09 goals. I don’t even expect to reach some of these, it’s just good to have them all written down to have an awareness of them.

2008 GOALS (the year that will be over TOMORROW! wow)

HOMEWORK
• Every few weeks check Colleen’s progress on web site and follow through with teachers on items needed to be made up.
• Boys – try and get them to write their names, and spell extra, 1-2 times a week. Find computer games for them to play. Try and help Chris focus on academics a few times a week and show Doreen how to do it too.
CHORES
• Colleen to continue picking up her room and to start doing her dishes (soap squeegie!) and laundry.
• Get icon board up and done for boys’ chores.
• Try and get us in position where dishes and laundry and daily pickup gets done every day and figure out as a family HOW!
HEALTH
• Me – Weigh Down. Lose at least 20 pounds. no dieting at this stressful time.
Continue reading “I never posted my 08 goals–”

Christmas

Christmas Newsletter 08


DSC00074

Originally uploaded by

criscollrj

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Well, here in NE Ohio we have managed to have a white Christmas after all, after having a white “Pre” Thanksgiving and it all melting before Thanksgiving, and then having a foot of snow just a few days ago in a generous Lake effect Northern Ohio storm, and having it all melt yesterday. So now the little flakes are coming down on our green grass that had emerged yesterday, and it’s enough to make me feel indeed it’s a White Christmas.

It has been an eventful year, full of changes and unforeseen events, but God’s hand in all as always. He continues to oversee us through the years and we trust He always will.

More pictures are in Flickr to the right.


DSC03191

Originally uploaded by

criscollrj

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CHRIS moved into a new home this year. It was quite a surprise to everyone, and came about when he was almost 18, in September. We had turned down about 4-5 other residency placements over the past few years, but this one seemed perfect. It’s a small home in Northeast Ohio, with 8 people.

He has adjusted well and he enjoys our outings and visits. He has lost weight and looks great! He is also attending a school local to his home and ours, instead of his old school, in the 11th grade. His health has also greatly improved. Sleeping is still rough, though.

Chris has outings with us frequently, going to the chiropractor, mall, restaurant, and sometimes our house. He is also doing very well in school with increased focus. He is also on some new medications.


DSC03177

Originally uploaded by

criscollrj

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COLLEEN had some changes this year too, with briefly homeschooling (ECOT method) from May to sometime in July, then again in September, then returning to her district school in late September (I needed to increase my work hours). She’s still involved in her art, anime, and friends.

Colleen had her first teen Christmas party this year and had a ball in the basement with their doing DDR and Playstation games, along with several them bringing over Guitar Hero and X-Box. She also went to 2 anime conventions with friends this year, one in Columbus and one in Beachwood.

Bass lessons are a near future possibility and she is excited about that. She also is still involved in art and received recently a lot of art supplies to practice painting, and an easel.


DSC03183

Originally uploaded by

criscollrj

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RYAN is in first grade in a local autism class and is getting great grades and is able to write many words and do simple math. He loves school and is thriving with a recent med change he’s had that’s really calmed him down a lot.

He is enjoying a Leapster he just got, and also had a lot of fun with the crayons, playdough, cars and coloring books he received for Christmas this morning. He has fun seeing his brother and says, “Chris is at the blue house.”


DSC03185

Originally uploaded by

criscollrj

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ROGER and DORENE are still in the same jobs, and Dorene is hoping to test for the AAERT certification in June of 09.

Roger is still performing court research in many N.E. Ohio and PA counties as well as some southern Ohio and PA counties. We are planning to travel together to one of the PA counties to gather information together in a few weeks as they do not allow laptops in their courthouse.

I just recently got a laptop for work that I’m enjoying, and Roger updated his in May, as his old one had crashed. My old 4 or 5-year-old work computer also crashed, as far as programs freezing and an external (but essential) hard drive failing. So we both entered the land of Vista this year, entering the later end of our decade finally.

I have not updated web sites very much this year. I mostly go on Facebook, if anything, and update here occasionally. I usually do put new pictures on Flickr every time I take any. Below is the pretty up-to-date list of our sites 🙂

EMAIL: transcribing.mom@gmail.com

EMAIL: typealign@att.net

EMAIL (Rog) thedodger1@att.net

BLOG: www.criscollrj.com/Blog

PICTURES: http://www.flickr.com/photos/criscollrj/

HOME PAGE: www.criscollrj.com – home

FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com

BUSINESS BLOG/INFO: www.line-bright.com – business

(2020, line-bright was gone but came back last year.  Still rebuilding it.

 

Roger, Dorene, Christopher,
Colleen & Ryan

 

children, Christmas, organizing

Christmas 08

It’s a good thing I love Christmas, as it comes whether you want it to or not! Pics in flickr 😉

I’m going to order the kids presents today, and Colleen is having a little party for her friends this Friday night. Next Saturday the 20th is the family party. I look forward to that every year. We make special food like broccoli casserole with chicken in it and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and just relax. Chris will be here too that day! He was here for Thanksgiving and he had a good time. He really seems to love his new home too and is content as far as I know.

I just worked about 8 days straight and am taking today off. Have a huge to-do list – here’s some of it:

invoicing for work
Request work from E for tomorrow
order Christmas gifts
look over bills
make drs. appts for Rog and I (dentist, eye doctor, foot dr. for me, etc.)
laundry
finish decorating tree
take thanksgiving stuff to attic.
Dailies (5 minutes each room)
Plan dinner
Call about Chris’ guardianship
Begin to look at Christmas newsletter
Order printer ink, and stamps.

 

chris, Christmas, life

No time!

So what’s taking my time? All kinds of things!

  • working
  • trying to clean house
  • learning the Dave Ramsey method of financing
  • occasionally exercising, but eating too much candy
  • Seeing Chris!
  • Overseeing Colleen & Ryan
  • Checking out facebook (my user name is dori typesalot) and finding old friends on there.
  • what~2020 – dori typesalot?  that’s hilarious!!!  Wonder how long that lasted?
  • Cooking homecooked meals to save money!
  • Planning Christmas a bit ahead of time
  • Doing Chris’s guardianship papers for him turning 18
  • Suffering from colds – like two in a row – yuck!
  • Watching with amazement the leaves turn red and then all of the sudden today they’re all off the trees…
  • Enjoying our first snow earlier this week.

Happy Thanksgiving, if I’m not back on before that, and keep checking the Flickr pics on the right!  (2020, yeah that’s outdated too — leaving it there anyway, as I had that Flickr viewer for YEARS)

Christmas

Christmas newsletter, 2007

CHRISTMAS BLESSINGS —



B een busy with working, kids, and holiday events
L ife is crammed full as always!
E veryone needs to take some time and relax
S omeone special will leave gifts for the kids
S o tired, mom and dad will fall into bed
E ating holiday cookies will be a fun time for all!
D ecorating is mom’s favorite thing to do!

S ometimes dad doesn’t get home until late
E ventually we all spend some time together though!
A ll of the work eventually gets done
S eason’s clues begin to appear in the household arrangements
O ften mom and dad are up late finishing chores and those gifts
N othing can be left out for little eyes to see in the daylight
Photobucket

Christmasbearavatar
We wish you True Simplicity and Peace in 2008. That is my motto at this time, and what I am seeking. Life can get truly chaotic with everything you have to do and want to do and need to do. I had to scale a bit back this year in all areas to simply be able to manage everything – and I still can’t manage every single thing! It sure is a balancing act. But Christmas has been very enjoyable in that I am not trying to do everything I used to do. I had to cut way back on cards this year and only sent to mostly out of town immediate family, knowing that you all have email. [I tried to send to most of our loved ones that don’t have email – I hope I didn’t forget anyone!]

Chris is 17 now, in the 10th grade, and learning more and more skills all the time! After kind of a tough year last year with medication problems (he was switched to a different med in approximately March of 07) he has had a very good school year this year and is more cooperative and compliant and happy.

The last 6 weeks or so everyone has had at least 3 different colds and he’s been a bit miserable with that. I hope we all get over it soon!

Chris is wearing his hearing aid at school – we have one that is lost that we are seeking to replace. Both boys will have ABR’s to retest their hearing very soon as they are due – it was almost 3 years ago they were first tested.

Colleen is 13 and in the 8th grade. She is making videos and animating them herself, and still excelling at art.

Colleen had the opportunity to join the Anime club and is really enjoying that. And playing drums is her next ambition – I need to do some research and make some calls into that to see about lessons, etc.

The following websites showcase her work? http://www.flaming-kimono.bravehost.com/,
http://youtube.com/profile?user=KirraInuyasha
http://keyara-inuyasha.deviantart.com/gallery/

2020 only the third one works.  I am glad it does!  Left the other two up as I like her originality of site names!

And wonderfully, baking is a new hobby of Colleen’s, and it’s really helping me out this Christmas!

Ryan is going to be 6 in February and is in Kindergarten in a classroom where he gets a lot of speech help. He is learning to write a lot of words and can count to 30!

The therapist I spoke of last year did come to our house through most of the year and taught us some ways to work with Ryan more efficiently and effectively. She was great! She had to leave her job and we’re going to miss her very much.

Ryan is in mastery of his icon schedule at school and loves to get on the bus. He loves Blues Clues now and has to watch it every night before bed on DVR.

Roger is well into his second full year of Court research and enjoys traveling throughout Ohio and PA. For about 6 months of the year we were busy collecting menus for a sub-area of the company, and that was neat – we often took the kids with us and Colleen made some money collecting menus with her dad. It was fun family time and we would spend some of our profits at times on a nice dinner from an obscure Italian pizza place or a Chinese restaurant. We were disappointed that that recently ended.

But Roger is still busy collecting mortgage data and tax liens, and will probably begin collecting foreclosure files soon.

Photobucket (Colleen made this for me)

I have finally broken fully into legal transcription again and have hit my comfort zone transcribing for the same court I did in 02! I would like to get my certification in the field. This will involve joining AAERT and studying a guide and testing eventually when they get to an area near me. I have to be a notary as well, which I am; however, I don’t have my stamp and seal at this point. It expires in November of 08 – I need to remember to renew it.

The certification opens doors that aren’t otherwise open, and I think will cement me in the field that I really am happy to be in for my next several working years.

I have been participating on a transcription board and have met many wonderful people on there! One of them is a new boss I have!

The genetic testing for hearing loss that I mentioned in last year’s letter so far resulted in no known cause. Ryan was the one who took the test. So we will see if more testing will be done in the future.

Haven’t had a lot of time for hobbies, but blogging and youtube, and watching a little TV, are relaxing for us in the down times.

Myspace. notify us to add you
criscollrj.com Main site [2010 note, this is now blog, and has a link to older web sites on it]
Criscoll’s Cottage . Older main site, not updating [2010 note, this is now purged as Geocities folded.]  2020 elsewhere I did log the name of oocities where a mirror of this exists….  http://www.oocities.org/dorifam/
flickr.com/. picture gallery
Photobucket picture gallery, videos
Christmas newsletters [2010 note, this may have dead links – still lots of work to do!]
vimeo.com

2020 – just left all these here as the namings, etc., are definitely interesting and many still have content. 

With our obtaining FINALLY! a digital video camera as an early Christmas present, we started this video site where we upload a lot of our family videos for relatives and friends to view. Here is a recent one:

Untitled from Dori H on Vimeo.

School pics

Mary’s Song

Luke 1:46-55

And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
even as he said to our fathers.” (KJV)

VIDEO I put together to “Mary, Did You Know —

https://youtu.be/g0aI8cwrW-U

 

Christmas

If anyone is looking for my Christmas letter —

it’s coming!!! Every year I do a Christmas letter and photo page – and I’ve gone from making a complete web site for them (a la https://criscollrj.com/christmas%20index.html to putting them on my Blog. Usually I have it done and out by now and really enjoy writing to all of my email friends (I have hundreds!). I used to do it when Chris would be up all night and I wasn’t working at home at the time, and would spend a lot of time on it.

2020 – about ten years ago I lost a lot of my html pages.  I am not sure if some of these christmas newsletters are also blank.  I’m hoping to get to edit html pages this year, but not sure if I will get to it before my Christmas newsletter 2020 goes out….

I think last year was the first year ever that I believe I just sent to everyone and didn’t get to write a letter to everyone. I missed doing that. I surely hope I can squeeze it in this year – but don’t know that it will be before Christmas.

If any of you are on my email list – know it’s coming, and we’re thinking of each and every one of you!!

 

Christmas

Ahhh

Image result for coca cola image

 

Yum – I’ve REALLY been wanting a coke and finally got some cans!!! Boy you appreciate what you run out of when you finally get it!

I have been so BORING lately – first I complete NABLOPOMO and then I go to December and hardly post at all!

I have been cleaning and doing projects and laundry and all sorts of things like that. Wrapping is done, shopping is done. We are having our family over on Sunday for Christmas. I believe we are going to Gayle’s for Christmas dinner.

It just came so fast this year – it hardly feels like it should be October let alone Christmas!

Here is just one of the videos of our tree:

Untitled from Dori H on Vimeo.

 

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=a6FWKISq&id=E817480F49C14C592B7DBFF7515138D4EB3D857A&thid=OIP.a6FWKISqn1I9otxGcLWB6AHaEK&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fwww.pixelstalk.net%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2016%2f08%2fCoca-Cola-HD-Wallpapers.png&exph=1080&expw=1920&q=coca+cola+image&simid=607991099828145632&ck=FD4AF4B62D41F6A05F6199A77AB7F0A7&selectedIndex=0&FORM=IRPRST

Christmas, health

Would like to slow down and enjoy it—

The season is upon us. I am in a whirlwind of stuff and a lot of the stuff is not getting done. But we have our beautiful tree up, and the shopping is done (much lower in quantity this year, but high in quality and as always in love given…)

My to-do list:

  • Finish 70 minutes of audio of 120 due Saturday.
  • Schedule kids’ abr’s
  • Start wrapping gifts
  • Finish Christmas cards (very short list of mail cards – only to immediate out of town family pretty much.)
  • Do email Christmas letters
  • Plan for Christmas party – menu, cookies, etc.
  • Clean house, do laundry
  • Try and enjoy the little things.

And immediate goal – get rid of headache I have tonight.