Wild-Heart.net

Boy #2 continues to enjoy being a High School Freshman. This evening he just asked me a question in the form of a minor rant that let me know he just discovered one of life’s greatest mysteries involving females that he is never going to fully understand. Not even Mr./Mrs. Garrison on South Park was able to figure this one out… He asked,

“What the heck is it with girls and hanging out in the bathrooms? What are they doing in there? Some of them put pictures on MySpace that they take with their cell phone cameras of them all posing in front of the toilets. Why? Why? Why do girls hang out in the bathrooms? The only time I’ve ever seen people hanging out in bathrooms ins in movies and in the movies they are killing people or snorting cocaine. I don’t understand what they are doing in there!”

I chuckle at his frustrated queery. He will be asking this question for the rest of his life.

Explanation is needed as I messed up with the image sizes for the intro. My “granddaughters” proved to be more entertaining with the laser pointer than the stupid cat.

Baby Boy is feeling the subtle change of seasons and daylight hours which means his chronic insomnia is kicking in gear again. He’s had me awake since 02:30 going on and on about a website he’d like me make for him. He already has a domain name picked out. At first I thought this website was going to be an art gallery for a specific series of drawings & art creations that he and Bonus Boy have been doing for the past two years.

Wrong.

I was just informed that he wants it fully developed into a virtual world similar to Webkinz. I may be slowly relearning my CSS, PHP and SQL code skills but I am not a web application developer. Heck, I’m having a difficult enough time regaining the design skills I used to have.

Gods love him. His little Aspergers & Schizoaffective brain cannot understand that while the front end of his concept may look and act simply, the backend programming would take a whole set of skills that I simply cannot deplooy. He’s spent the last hour attempt to convince me that I can based simply on how he wants it to look. *sigh*

First off, I want to direct you all over to VK’s Electric Venom as she and her family have been dealing with some tough family issues that those of us who are parents of aging baby-boomers are all going to face eventually. I pray that as many as possible are able to learn from her grace inspired posts during this difficult time. Kate, know I’m thinking of you and praying for you and yours!

Secondly, I have a new picture of myself over there in the sidebar. I suppose the diet is still working as it shows more weight loss than the previous one and also the haircut that I got on my birthday. My hair was previously all one length again and rapidly reach waist length again. It’s thick and heavy. It had to go. You’ll also notice a new Skype button below it. Please take notice of the fact that it shows my status. If it says that I’m away, I really truly am NOT at my computer. If it says that I’m busy, I really truly am too busy to futz around taking calls from Skype just the same as in meat space, I would be letting voice mail answer it but I don’t pay for Skype Out so don’t expect an answer if you message me or call me at those times.

Lastly, since getting involved in the YouTube Transfromer community with Boy #2, I had a handful of requests for a video tour of our home which our mutual friends came to dub “The House of Darkness” as when Boy #2 does a video he does so in very low lighting. If you’re curious as to how 6 people can efficiantly and effectively live in a 2 bedroom townhouse you can watch the video below. Just take note that while I was very frustrated with Boy #2 and his shoving Frenzy in front of the camera every few minutes by the end of the shoot, he did not come to any physical harm. I’ll just be glad when whatever it is that happens to boys when they turn 15 is over. I’m bracing myself for the long haul, though. I’ve been told it lasts for at least 5 years. I do know this, the year of mental torture he put me through while homeschooling him so he could advance a year in public school paid off big time. Between his grade placement test and his California Achievement Test scores he is now a HS Freshman instead of an 8th grader and his HS operates in a 4 class per semester block schedule (3 academecis, 1 elective) and his three academic placements were all honors classes. He’s loving every minute of it. Any who, here’s the video. I shall post more when time and life allow.

And all I got was a severe skin reaction to my fentanyl patch so severe leaving tiny little blistered hives in the shape of a flacid penic and testicles drawn by a 16 year old. I tried to get a picture to show you just how gross it I can’t get the lighting right.

Seriously though, my husband did get me a book I’ve been anxiously waiting to read that just came out in hardback and I thought I was going to have to wait until next year for it to be released in paperback before reading it.

As for the children… Heh. Whatever. Boy #2 is grounded from the internet and is refusing to speak to anyone except me and only when no one else is around and only after 9pm and before 6am. He woke me up at 3 am. We keep telling him a change in attitude will earn his privileges back. He seems determined to not care and be a brat.

Edit: One of my Transformer toy nerd friends at a forum I frequent (yeah you can give me grief about that on another day ) Posted the typical funny pic of a guy jumping out of a cake and I gave him grief about it not being Edward Norton, whom y’all should know by now I have an odd obsession with. He returned with the following…

I just think it would be better if Edward was in boxer-briefs. He just doesn’t look right in a G-string.

Rather than posting a tear jerker, I share with you Sam the Eagle from The Muppets.

Because I’m lame like this. Because I’m too tired to type and have no time to blog during the day and because I don’t care WTF I look like at 00:15.

Recently, I took a brave step and started video blogging. I’m taking a huge step here and going to post the most recent one. It’s in two parts. I tend to ramble. It’s a brave step. I shot it late in the evening and am wearing no make-up and had taken my evening meds about an hour earlier. Any who. If you want to know what the family and I have been up to you can watch the following two videos.

My apologies for the abrupt cutoff at the end of Part 2. Normally I just upload the video straight from my camera, but this time I used some editing software to shrink the size down a bit and split it. I guess Avidemux got the last few seconds on the second part. Ooopsie. Oh well.

For those of you, and I know there are quite a few of you, who end up here after searching for information about parenting a schizoaffective child. I realize you won’t find a whole lot of information here, just as you won’t find a much anywhere on internet. It’s a lonely diagnosis to deal with as a parent. If you are interested in an online forum for parents such as us, please, don’t hesitate to use the contact form. The link is on the right and up top. Let me know. If there is enough interest, I’ll install a private forum for us to have a place to gather and share what information we do know from our children’s doctors and the scant information that is available online. I hope all is well in your lives and that you, your child and families may eventually find peace in dealing with disorder that has such an awesome ability to wreck so much havoc in our lives, especially if there is one or more co-morbid diagnosis involved. Don’t let it all overwhelm you, click the link to the contact form and let’s see what we can do together.

After my own music collection Rick Rolled me a little bit ago, it then surprised me with this song. Talk about immediate flashbacks of awkward High School dances with the dread slow dances. This was the slow song that never seemed to end. The song for the dance in which you realized you really did like the guy you were dancing with or that he was a right bore and you would rather be anywhere but there more than you had the whole night and started thinking of nice ways to break up with him without hurting his feelings.

Most of my generation doesn’t have an appreciation for Hip-Hop or Rap genres. You can blame Boy #2, or you can blame R. Kelly switching from R&B to Hip-Hop in the late 90’s. Doesn’t matter. Back to the artist for today… Lupe Fiasco. Check his Wikipedia page before you watch the video below. The song has been in my head for days. Lupe nails the struggle for so many young men in bad situations and neighborhoods, not just Houston, in this song. I see it here in Macon just blocks away from my home. My boys go to school with several young men who are praying for their music to save them and get them out of this town. If you want to hear more, look for his song “Dumb it Down.” It’s more of an example of what Lupe is trying to do with his music. This one here is more of a ballad, if you will.

It was long, yet not long enough. We arrived late and it was already drizzling. There are a couple of short videos added to the collection on the Videos page (link on the right or the button up top). Has my son changed since in his first 3 weeks at Youth Challenge? I think so. It’s easier to tell in his letters and his phone calls than it was from our visit yesterday. After about an hour of indulging in sugar and caffeine, I really didn’t get much of a chance to visit with him as he was hyper and all over the place. For him it was a day of freedom. He was able to listen to music for the first time in 3 weeks and have a few hours of unrestricted time. I heard many words of praise from his Cadre, Sergeants and various other staff members. It was a good day. Even though we had to leave early due to my back going out. Didn’t seem to phase him, though. He was too hyped on Mt. Dew and the excitement of getting to do the repelling tower again with his buddies. I think I miss him twice as much now. *sigh*

And I could use a little help finding it. Perchance one of you might have it tucked away in your recipe box. If so, I don’t know how I could repay you but I’ll come up with something! The recipe is for Peanut Butter Bars. I originally found the recipe 7 years ago on AllRecipes.com. I’ve been through every single peanut butter recipe on that site in the last two weeks and have yet to recover it. I used to have a notebook filled with all of my families favorite recipes. It seems to have grown feet and walked away. Back to the recipe. There is no oatmeal in this one, nor is there chocolate of any variety, however, they do have the consistency of a chewy brownie after they are baked. The first part of the recipe calls for the peanut butter, butter/margarine, and sugar to be slowly melted together in a sauce pan and allowed to cool before stirring in the eggs and flour. I don’t remember if there is vanilla extract in the recipe or not.

Why, you may ask is this recipe so important? And why and am I in such a desperate rush to find it? As you might recall, Boy #1 is attending National Guard Youth Challenge. This Saturday is Family Day. We are allowed to bring them treats and favorite foods from home. All he really wants is two things, these Peanut Butter Bars and a McDonald’s cheeseburger. The later because, “Momma, I’m so sick of canteen food. It’s not bad but it’s not good either. I know you’ll have to get it the night before and it will be cold, I don’t care. It will be better than any burger I’ve ate in the last month!”

Any who, if the details of the recipe that I have given have rung any bells, please, leave me a comment or use the contact form (link is on the right) and share! Meanwhile, I will try to come up with a way to reward whomever is able to accomplish this mission.

I am a farmer’s daughter so I didn’t “exactly” grow up in a small town. But I went to school in one, church in another, and worked in one, too. And Gods know I did my fair share of teenage rebellion in a small town. I’m nearly grown up now. I say nearly because I don’t think we, as humans ever stop growing up. If we do, we have limited our minds and our ability to learn and our capacity for understanding and empathy. I know how to shoot a gun. I no longer cling to my God but rather embrace several Gods.

You have insulted so many people that no one any longer thinks about your message of Hope. You see, Mr. Oboma, I am an intelligent woman and I have an odd capacity of memory and it is also has the unique ability of being a photographic memory. I remember Nixon and Johnson and Carter and Reagan and Bush. I also voted for Clinton twice and Bush once. It would have been twice had this dreaded state of Georgia not given me 5 years of grief in obtaining a state ID. I hold no party loyalty. But you are certainly no longer a potential for my vote no matter how you may appear on the ballot come this November. I find that sad. I find it sad that when I go to vote it will be a vote that is essentially a wasted vote. I may delude myself with the idea that no vote is wasted even a losing vote makes a statement. In the end, it really doesn’t.

In closing, I’d like to say, “F*ck you.” But my parents raised me better than that when it comes to addressing those who hold public office. So, I’ll just say what many others have said. You screwed up and lost a potential vote. Why? Because I was raised in a small town and just because I now live in a city doesn’t mean I have lost my roots.

At least it has him out of The Cave (aka our bedroom where his computer is located). However, I have a feeling this will just enable him to spend even more time in The Cave.

A parental tool of discipline! I wish I had thought of this earlier. In past couple of days I have discovered a way to get the children to do what they’ve been asked to do. They, just like Little Bunny Foo-Foo, get three chances, if they still aren’t behaving they get subjected to early 80’s Power Ballads. Who wouldn’t do anything to make Chicago stop singing Hard To Say I’m Sorry? Bwahahahaha! And YouTube gives me quick and easy access to such atrocities. By the time he gets to, “Hold me now,” they are apologizing, begging for me to make it stop and doing what has been asked of them. I love you, YouTube.

• Learn Sanskrit through self study
  “Children may also be able to follow the lessons, if parents are able to explain to them the meaning of the grammatical terms used in the lessons.”
  (tags: sanskrit language education)
• Hindu Primer Index

And I want to pull my hair back and scream, “I don’t want to be the queen!”

…Will I be suckered in by WalMart.com’s offer of free shipping by way of their Site-to-Store service. The waiting period is agonizingly slow. And I am being bit in the arse by my own frugality everyday that passes that I do not receive the email letting me know that my order has arrived for pick-up at my store. One part of my order left the sorting facility in SC on the 4th and its status has been listed since then as as “in route to delivery facility.” For those of you with rudimentary geography skills that know I live in middle Georgia, you might find yourself as perplexed as I am. It would seem that somewhere between South Carolina and our chosen store in Macon, there is a Delivery Facility and so far that one portion of the order has been in route to that delivery facility for six freakin’ days!

The other portion of the order is listed as having been shipped and “in route” to the “sorting facility” since the 4th. This has gone beyond ridiculous. And I can honestly say this is the first time my frugality has bitten me in the ass. I just have this gut feeling that when the items finally arrive at our store for pick-up something is going to be damaged. *sigh*

Technorati Tags: Wal-Mart, site-to-store

Most of the time, Boy #2, who is a few years and a basement away from becoming  an internet addicted, basement dweller, only leaving home to go to work at Best Buy or Circuit City…. Sorry got lost in there for a second… Anyway, most of the url’s to YouTube that he sends me are lame and of no interest to me. But this one is pure genius! I laughed until my side hurt! And there is a whole series of ‘em!

It’s been a long day. Most of it spent on the road. It has also been a difficult day. I hate that about life… The fact that sometimes the right thing to do can be so painful. I purchased him a Bible to take with him. The following is what I wrote on the dedication page:

My Dearest (name withheld),

Though we now walk different spiritual paths, know that I respect where ever this spiritual journey may lead you. Know that even now, I still turn to my Bible when my soul is troubled. For in these pages are words of wisdom that know no boundaries of religion. These 22 weeks will not be easy but never forget that I love you always and have faith in you. You can and WILL make it through!

Love always,
Mom

PS - Read Proverbs, Chapter 2 often!

I’ll leave you with our good-bye picture. It’s horrible. I have PMS & cardiac bloat and a migraine that has lingered for 3 days. Three days was long enough for me to not want to even think about putting make-up on my face. You might want to make sure it doesn’t frighten small children or pets.

Click if you want to see it big and not distorted.

My apologies for the lack of posting. It’s been quite hectic here. Keeping a sharp on Boy #1 while waiting for this coming Saturday to arrive when we deliver him to Ft. Gordon for his first day of classes at National Guard Youth Challenge whilst attempting to school Boy #2 and Baby Boy has been a challenge.

There are so many songs that pull at my Celtic heartstrings that I could share with you today. Songs that make my heart and soul long for home, that small Irish-Catholic farming community of one Church and one pub full of extended family where everyone is related to everyone in one way or another. Where they say our Great-great-grandfathers decided to settle because the land of gently rolling hills, valleys and streams reminded them of their homes they left behind in Ireland. But I couldn’t pick just one.

Since this week is so focused on Boy #1 taking a huge step to change his life for the better and will be ending with his departing from us for 22 weeks, the song that seems most fitting is Danny Boy. When Boy #1 was an infant and toddler and we happened to be at my parent’s house, if it was time him to have a nap or if he was simply fussy, my father loved to snatch him away from me, sit down with him in the rocking-recliner and very quietyly sing Danny Boy to him. It always quickly calmed him and now and then I would catch a tear falling down my fathers face as he watched his first-born grandchild slumber in his arms. They share a bond that at times has infuriated me beyond belief, one that I have tried desperately to comprehend over the last 16 years. Regardless, on this St. Patrick’s Day, my father’s second favorite holiday of the year, and this being the week that Boy #1 starts a new journey into manhood, I’m going to share Danny Boy.

Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountainside.
The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling.
‘Tis you, ’tis you must go and I must bide.
But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow
Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow,
‘Tis I’ll be there in sunshine or in shadow.
Oh Danny Boy, Oh Danny Boy, I love you so.

He made the cut! Boy #1 received his letter from National Guard Youth Challenge today informing him that he has been selected for the class starting in March at Ft. Gordon! We go to Augusta for orientation next Saturday and he reports for first day of classes on March 22. Holy Saturday. A 22 week program. At the end of which he’ll have a diploma/GED. These are all good signs in my book. He’s completely psyched and ready to go and is even looking forward to the first two weeks of the program which they call Hard Core Challenge, which from I’ve been told is similar to basic training/boot camp. It’s the two weeks that make it or break it for the new cadets and he’s not worried about it one single bit. Yay!

I found this over at Agelika’s other blog. I swear to you this is exactly how Boy#1 and Boy#2 interact with each other everyday of their lives and always have.

Sometimes I feel like a Beverly Cleary character all grown up with  her very own outrageous family in action.

Song of the day: Kid Rock - Amen

Love him or hate him. This is a good one. Say, “Amen!” (That’s right I’m a pagan and I’m posting a song titled “Amen” and I am open minded enough to enjoy it. Imagine that…)

Things are sort of falling back into a regular routine around here.  I’ve put off blogging about the trip to see the specialist at Emory because it is  rather odd for me to deal with at the moment. The good news is that the med that my local cardiologist put me on has the pulmonary stenosis back at a mild state. But she discovered that I have a 5.4cm main pulmonary artery aneurysm. Currently she is working with all of my doctors to track down the cause of the aneurysm before deciding on how best to approach correction of it. She highly suspects a genetic form of a connective tissue disorder. If this turns out to be the case then it determines the way the surgeons repair the aneurysm, they would do a wrap type of procedure instead of a graft type. In the meantime, I was told to try to remain as stress free as possible and to keep taking my anti-anxiety medications as Rx’d by my neuro-psyche.Allof the lab work for Lupus and other common connective tissue disorders and coronary artery disease came back negative. So the next step is an MRI to check for MS, which my neuro-psyche said is possible that I might have but highly unlikely to be the cause of the aneurysm as I would have to be at the end stage of the advanced-progressive type for it to be affecting my internal organs and to have caused that. (Think: Annette Funicello) and there are no signs of any type of MS being at that stage. But it’s all part of what must be done and tested for in order for insurance to cover the genetic test for the type of connective tissue disorder she thinks is running in our family and my neuro-psyche after getting into more detail about my physcial medical history and family medical history tends to agree with her.

In the meantime, trying to stay calm and mellow with 2 teenagers and a schizoaffective child and a certain other outside influences is certainly a challenge but one in which I’m attempting and the kids are finally starting to come around to reigning in their obnoxious boy-only household behavior. I’ve also updated my will, living will and power of attorney in the last week as I was told to do. “Just in case, you know.”

With all of that out of the way I’ve become aware of just how precious everyday is and I’m not going to let any certain outside influences continue to screw with my family and our peace and happiness. From now on it is gloves off when dealing with these sorts. Life is too short to spend it in a state of stress and anxiety brought on by the poor behavior of other people.

KDE4 was released yesterday. Yay! Not really. It’s lovely but still obviously not quite ready for prime time for those who like to configure their main panel. Even worse was an ATI driver update on the same day that hosed my xorg.conf. Got that straightened out.

As I recently told a friend:  I think I play with various Linux distros (read: torture myself with) is because they give me something to challenge my intellect with. Something to fuss and frett over that I can have that moment of victory that leaves me with that moment of having the feeling of, “Yes, bitch! You are mine! I won and you lost! Take that!” Life doesn’t provide me with very many opportunities to accel or conquer many problems and we all know how unappropriate those words would be if used when getting the upperhand in a parental situation. LOL

Tonight the youth minister whom voluntered to be Boy#1’s mentor for National Guard Youth Challenge is joining us for supper and paperwork. Tomorrow my sister in-law and her family will be visiting and Monday it’s up to ATL to the clinic at Emory.

Not enough hours in a day.

They started in at 04:00. We were able to ward them off until 07:00. I hope you’re all having a fabulous holiday. The following was the only good picture I was able to get of the four of the boys together.

As you can see, I wasn’t able to get them to sit down. If they would have you’d have been able to see my Cindy-Lou Who tree in all of it’s pathetic glory.

I’m taking a bit of a hiatus for the rest of the month and possibly most of January. I don’t know how much time I’ll available to blog as it will be incredibly busy once the two public school boys are back in school from their winter break. I’ll have a couple of local doctor appointments and then my local cardiologist has referred me to The Emory Adult Congenital Cardiac Clinic. That appointment falls during the second week of January and from what my local cardiologist, neurologist and internist have told me from the results of the latest echocardiogram, we can expect it to be the first of many visits to the clinic which is two hours from here.

I want to thank Kate and Slobo for all of their help in getting me started on the various paths to making money off blogging. I hope the two of you don’t feel it was all in vain. Life has been hectic to say the least and blogging has become one of those things that currently feels like a chore. Gods know I have enough chores to do away from the keyboard to worry about appeasing potential advertisers at the moment. I still read everyone linked in my blogroll and comment when I have time.

Next I want to thank my dear friend Lisa who’s book has finally hit the shelves. Not only did she send me a personally signed copy of the book but I was surprised to find myself not only listed in the Acknowledgments but also mentioned in the first paragraph of the first chapter. I’m such a sap. Those pages are tear stained. Thank you, Lisa. And of course I highly recommend the book to those just starting out with WordPress or even those just looking to brush up their WordPress skills.

And now I’ll leave you with the only Holiday song I seem to be able to stand this year. Even though I’ve taken the role of Grinch this year, I wish you all a blessed and happy holiday season and New Year.

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