Christmas, NaBloPoMo, Ryan

Spirit of Christmas

Ryan style 🙂

I was doing dishes yesterday but Ryan decided THEN was the time to start unpacking all the Christmas boxes I had hidden behind the couch. He also did some of this in the morning yesterday before school —

Let’s get all these boxes dumped!




Decorating Ryan Style 1

Originally uploaded by criscollrj.

What a bunch of tangled beautiful garland!




Decorating Ryan Style 2

Originally uploaded by criscollrj.

Garland still on bottom, and 2 strands of lights (continued even now) out.




Decorating Ryan Style 4

Originally uploaded by criscollrj.

This tin looks like a drum!




Decorating Ryan Style 5

Originally uploaded by criscollrj.

Putting all the garlands on the bottom …




Decorating Ryan Style 6

Originally uploaded by criscollrj.

Pulling all the garland out. He eventually got it all tangled and we had to get it all untangled last night 🙂




Decorating Ryan Style 7

Originally uploaded by criscollrj.

Last night:

The breakables, up high enough??




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Originally uploaded by criscollrj.

Love those lights…




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Originally uploaded by criscollrj.

Colleen’s room.




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Originally uploaded by criscollrj.

Office wall




11-07 020

Originally uploaded by criscollrj.

Santas (not breakable, on lower shelf 🙂 )




11-07 021

Originally uploaded by criscollrj.

And half our stuff is still in the attic!




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Originally uploaded by criscollrj.

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computer geekiness, NaBloPoMo

Google fun (From Sasha’s blog)

http://www.55fun.com/

I am downloading this Acrobat book – looks fun to check out!

I love Google. I made an IGoogle page a few months ago and the thing that completely made my day is that I could have Pacman on there (among other fun things like Frogger, Checkers, and Hangman!!). I was addicted to Pacman in the 80’s, and was known for going into savings to buy quarters to play Pacman at the mall on break. Ms. Pacman specifically …

I also have a to do list on IGoogle, and a calendar. And (ahhh, beautiful) webcams of North Carolina.

And lest we leave anything else out about Google — gmail? Google Desktop Search? Google web search? Google groups? Picasa?

Awesomeness….

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autism, children, deafness, life, NaBloPoMo

The dreams of children

 

The dreams that we hold about having our children… and the reality given and the new dreams held

Dreams of all my life
The children we always wished for
Years go by like lightning
But the expectations soar

Wanting perfection
Working day and night for our bread
Trying to observe each smile,
accomplishment, and word said

When the progression is difficult
than the way you thought
it can be easy to despair;
when the child doesn’t speak, you doubt

The deafness and the silence, and even times with speech,
yet centered in their self fulfillment,
yet merged with our duty and responsibility
can make you wonder where meaning went

Others don’t understand
the way our lives progress
only in humor can we survive
The surroundings can appear a mess

and the heart, indeed, can be torn
as the love is strong as fire
burning in fierce protection
knows how their odds are dire

Chasing a boy, so active and bright,
running in glee
before he breaks the dishes
and plugs cords into electricity

The older child, a man,
yet speechless he is
locked in his world, caught,
yet we glory at each new task taught

We watch for each new joy
yet fight for rights unknown
the road is full of mire
but the Light of God is shown

copyright criscollrj.com dori 11/24/07

 

NaBloPoMo, Weather

I found this really funny for some reason:

Severe Weather Alert
TWC Message

945 PM EST FRI NOV 23 2007

THE LATEST SNOWFALL REPORTS FROM THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN CLEVELAND, OH: EDINBORO, 3.0″… MADISON 5 S, 2.0″… MILLCREEK TWP., 1.3″… YNG AIRPORT, 0.9″… CLE AIRPORT, 0.5″… CAMBRIDGE SPGS, 0.5″… ERIE AIRPORT, 0.5″… NORWALK, 0.2″… ERIE, 0.1″. STAY TUNED TO THE WEATHER CHANNEL OR GO TO WEATHER.COM FOR FURTHER UPDATES ON THIS WINTER WEATHER EVENT.

This popped up as “severe weather for ….” on my tool bar from TWC. Does this sound like Severe Weather to ANYBODY? It’s November 23rd in Ohio. A little snow. Not unusual.

Sheesh! I thought we had a blizzard coming or some warning about melting snow and a flood or something.

 

life, organizing

Chris’ birthday

http://nablopomo.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=997435%3ABlogPost%3A120991

My regular criscollrj.com/Blog is down but having fun learning about nablopomo and posting there. SO many blogs, SO little time 🙂           (2020 – these sites are no longer there, but interesting!)

Yes, can’t believe my Chris will be 17 soon…

tired and busy as always… with two boys that will not go to sleep.

More about my day from my transcription board:

posting today as I thought you’d all be able to use a good belly laugh —

Here’s what I THOUGHT I was going to do today: (On my transcription vacation, DAY ONE!)

  • Do British QA at 5 a.m.
  • Take shower and do misc. things like eat breakfast after kids go to school and be ready to start cleaning by 9
  • 9-12 – clean all upstairs rooms and do some paperwork that’s been awaiting me (I did clean and organize office yesterday so it literally is organized and awaiting me)
  • 12-1 – clean kitchen thoroughly and wash the floor and start a crockpot dinner
  • 1-2 – clean basement and workshop and garage that Ryan thoroughly trashed over the weekend. Now you’ve never seen trashed like this. This is taking big gray storage bins and dumping them upside down, mixing up all the contents, of 10-12 bins and searching for flashcards in them. He did this quickly and silently and sneakily while I was up here yesterday cleaning the office. He also dumped containers of some kind of glassware that may have been here from the previous owners and it is now broken on the floor in the workshop in the corner – I pushed it over but need to get the broom and dustpan and get that thrown out. Yes, I thought I could clean ALL this in one hour.
  • 2-3:30 and also throughout all day – sort about 11-12 loads of laundry (much soaking wet from the boys repeatedly putting clean towels in the bathtub to purposely stop it up and then dumping the towels over the other dirty but dry clothes and making them wet.

Needless to say this did not happen.

Here’s what I did:

  • First of all British QA was not ready until 2. Therefore thinking I had no work I actually took a leisurely bath and wrote my friend this morning(instead of starting housework).
  • Somehow my breakfast and all that and finishing invoicing I didn’t finish Saturday, answering various work emails and researching different audio I had loaded and stuff for next week took me all the way until 12:00 How this happened I do not know. I also almost fell asleep in the tub….
  • At 12:00 I went downstairs and started cleaning basement and workshop, and sorted the laundry WHILE I watched Pretty in Pink movie — I really was diligent though – I did keep sorting and folding and putting in pause to change loads or bring more downstairs. I was a good girl.
  • Started dishes at 2 and then also went back down into workshop to clean more about 3:15.
  • Surprising got British QA at 2 – did 40 minutes.
  • Never started dinner – ended up making hot dogs and soup at 6
  • Still finishing dishes.
  • Never cleaned upstairs at all. It looks like there was a typhoon.
  • Left out various details about Ryan going No. 2 where he shouldn’t have — 

Ah well, tomorrow’s another day – with everything added above that I didn’t do today, plus grocery shopping for Thanksgiving, picking up the yard (I still have pool toys out there) (and moldy pumpkins carved for Halloween). I also planned to get my Christmas stuff down – at least 1/3 of it [including the tree]. Well, that’s on hold now until Friday—

And the bus driver this morning says, hang in there, only one more day of school. No —

 

birthdays, children, chris, NaBloPoMo

How Strange! And Chris’ birthday

Posted 11-19 on NaBloPoMo (this site was down)

I usually post in my blog first and then copy the link here, but for some reason the blog is down. After all day not being able to access my FTP to load a pic in there – I am suspicious that something is going on with the password. Ah well – after my repeated conversations with our web server I’m sure we’ll figure it out.

Anyway – tomorrow is Chris’s birthday! 17 year ago at this time I was pretty sure I was in labor. I can’t believe it was that long ago yet I remember most every detail. I went to do some laundry at our IL’s and while I was there I started leaking. Being 25 and fairly clueless I waited a while thinking hmmm is this is it? I was pretty sure at this point (9:45 p.m. 17 years ago) that it was labor but still was terrified and didn’t want to call the hospital. At home I took a shower and ate an apple and debating going to sleep (maybe I don’t really want a baby after all?)

After finally calling the hospital and being ordered to come in — why did you wait so long? we took off to the hospital arriving at 1:30 (the time I arrived with all three kids). I sat up and rocked a lot and also lay and drifted, and had a lot of freedom in a nice birthing room and first felt heavy labor about about 5 a.m. or 6.

Christopher Owen was born at 9:04 a.m. 11/20/90 and was a sweet, happy-dispositioned child. He loved nursing and napped well.

He is still the sweetest person. He loves the simple things in life and gets happiness from his magazines, car rides, and good food.

Happy birthday Christopher!