False alarm on the chicken pox

The doctor said that the rash wasn't chicken pox, but from a virus that had been running rampant through kids in our area. Nothing serious, but that it would take about a week to get rid of the sore throat. So, we are past that hurdle and I am glad.

I have finally gotten some of the Injinji toe socks to protect my toes and keep them from rubbing together. It does seem to help some, although the affected toes are still sore from the initial injury, but it is getting better. Today, I put a blister shield on my little toe and then the toe socks and walked. It felt better, but it really hurt to pull off that blister shield. I trimmed my toenail way down to keep it from pulling when I pull off the tape, but I don't know if that will be enough. I may have to switch to wrapping the toe with something that won't stick so aggressively.

Then again, maybe it will toughen up again. I can hope.

I walked 3 miles with Dad yesteday and again this morning. Last night, I did 3 miles on the elliptical (it's easier on my toes). I have got to get my distance back, somehow, without tearing up my toes. Hmmm.

Off to the doctor's office...

John is still sick. The fever seems to have broken, but his throat is still sore. He has a few more blisters. I called the nurse and she wants us to come in. So, we will see!

Chicken Pox?

Uh oh. Oldest son has developed a fever, sore throat, and some mysterious, blistery sores. Sure sounds like chicken pox to me. Poor guy. Now he's stuck inside with no screen time and feeling like crud.

He wanted to spend the night with his Granny & Grandpa last night for some intensive TLC. They are really great with him. It was nice to know that he was in good hands.

Hubby is doing a photo shoot this afternoon. A bridal shoot for his portfolio. Can't wait to see the images.

The No TV Blues

Well, my autistic son has begun having some troubles, so after a consultation with his psychiatrist (Dr. Eric Fier--absolutely AWESOME!) we have decided to remove all "screen" time (video games, tv, handheld games, etc.) from him to see how that affects him.

So far, the results have been outstanding. He is interacting more and much more observant of different social ques and ways of doing things. Over time, I think this could help his maturity a great deal.

But, he does sorely miss his games and tv. It's not been easy on him (although he is a great deal more pleasant overall). I hope that the pull that these activities have on him will diminish somewhat in time. It would be nice to use a very limited amount of tv or a game as a reward. Or, take the family to a movie together. But, for now, that is out of the question so that he can adjust and (literally) suffer withdrawal symptoms like with any other addiction.

It's so easy for all kids to get way too wrapped up in the "boob tube" and video games. I just wasn't aware of exactly how wrapped up my son got until I took it away and saw for myself the importance that he placed on it.

Walking, blisters, and more

Well, I have been able to monopolize my friend Misty's time for mornings this week getting in lots of training miles. It's a hoot--truly social time. I enjoy it so much. Unfortunately, her husband is going to be off work for 2 weeks and he will walk with her instead. Bummer.

But, today I managed to walk 6 miles for the second time this week. It was really good except that I had a sore toe during the last 1/4 mile that we did. I thought I had a hot spot. Apparently, I was developing a huge blood blister on my little toe.

When I got home and took off my shoes my toe was swollen twice the size of normal and stained the color of blackberry juice. Nice. It hurts. So I have been taking it easy today. I guess I am back to my workout tapes (barefoot, thank goodness) or maybe my elliptical if I am super careful about my footwear. Oh well.

Tomorrow, I guess I will help to clean out the garage to set up a "real" photography studio. We have gotten a line on some lovely wedding dresses to put models in. It's really exciting!

Blessings upon blessings!

Friday morning, I went to pick up Ethan from camp and he seemed to have a really good time. But, it became very clear that he felt convicted in his heart. On the way home, he asked if he could be baptized.

After talking with him, it became clear that he genuinely understood why he wanted to be baptized and it was for all of the right reasons. So, at 7 pm, we met hubby and the rest of the family at the church and he was baptized into the Body of Christ. I am so proud of him.

He's a good kid!

It's Official! 2007 Crop for the Cure!!!

We have our location and now we need you to come and support our efforts. We will be at the Rock Springs Congregational Methodist Church in Milner, Georgia on August 24-25, 2007. It's going to be an absolute blast! It's Friday 6-10 pm and Saturday 9 am to 6 pm. We're providing food, drinks, snacks, a t-shirt, and vendors to demo loads of cool stuff! Did I mention that we have a masseuse coming in case you get a stiff neck while cropping your heart out?

Participants who register by August 1st will pay $60 for both days. As always, if you can't participate, you can always donate to help offset our costs!

I am SO excited about this one. It's going to be fun and full of surprises. Please help me spread the word to all of your scrapbooking friends and contacts. All net proceeds benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the Atlanta 2007 Walk for the Cure. Email me at janhatchett@bellsouth.net and I will send you a registration form.

I can't wait!!!

Hail, Fire, and Brimstone

Well, happy anniversary to me. Hubby and I went out to celebrate 20 years. An evening out that didn't involve running a few errands after a rushed dinner. No kiddos. Hand holding, etc.

Okay, dinner and a movie is probably not considered a dramatic event for a 20th wedding anniversary, but it works for us. I did design and print a large print of a photo that hubby had taken and had it framed for over the mantle. Oddly, for a photographer and family, we had a shocking few examples of his work around. He really seemed to appreciate it. Go figure.

So, we went to a lovely Japanese restaurant and hibachi grill in McDonough and from there went to see Spiderman 3. Well, we got to see half of it. More or less. By the time that the winds began whipping around the building and the hail was pelting the metal security door in a vertical trajectory, it became hard to even hear the movie, much less pay attention to it.

We were evacuated to the commons area of the facility so that they could monitor where everyone was. The commons area is floor to (elevated) ceiling windows--WINDOWS!!! The reason they gave us for making us leave the individual theater we were in was because of the TORNADO WARNING. Okay, for some crazy reason I don't think that an adult came up with this plan. Personally, they should have herded everyone into a single (windowless) theater so that in the event of a real weather emergency, we would have been protected from glass (a' la shrapnel) travelling at high velocity. But, I digress...

So, we did manage to have an anniversary celebration that was unlike the 19 that we had previously held. This is the first time to watch half a movie and listen to lots of unsupervised teens screaming uplifting and encouraging things like, "We're all gonna' die!" in front of the poor children that came to the movies with parents. No amount of snuggling with Mama or Daddy could keep those kids from hearing those comments and from their reactions, they didn't see it as dark humor. Poor kids.

Autism in the News

Lately, it seems that Autism is a hot topic in the news. I saw a report on Fox News tonight about the lawsuit that is being heard about the possibility of a link between a vaccine preservative used pre-1999 called thimerosol. Thimerosol contains a significant amount of ethyl mercury.

My oldest received these vaccines. I don't know that the mercury involved caused my son's autism, but I do believe that it could have aggravated certain genetic factors that he carries. I do know from testing that we have had done, that his body holds on to various metals and does not remove them from his system as normally occurs. It has taken a serious amount of detoxification to remove elevated levels of several metals from his body.

Unfortunately, I do not know that we will ever get a straight answer from governmental agencies regarding this issue. Perhaps because they will not want to accept responsibility/liability for their actions. We live in a terribly litigious society. Even if they knew that a small percentage of children would be affected, they would be bankrupted from the resultant lawsuits. In this world, it is unheard of for the public to understand that mistakes happen and that there is often no one to blame. Yet, we work incessantly to place blame instead of working wholeheartedly to solve the problem and identify the underlying issues.

I hereby officially blame this whole Autism mess on the purple speckled, green drooling monster that lives under my bed. And knowing that we have placed blame, we can get on to the real issues.

Enough crap. Figure out the underlying causes so we can get to fixing this mess. Help my son. Give him his whole life back instead of forcing him to rely on a faulty neurology and learning all things by rote. Is it so much to ask that he can walk across an uneven surface without feeling panicky that he could fall? Is it too much to ask that he be able to ride a two-wheeled bike like the other kids? That he could go to camp--not a special camp for Autistic kids, but a real, in the woods, arts and crafts, swimming, fishing, pranking the other cabins type of camp?

Autism sucks. Letting political garbage affect the lives of children sucks more.

Stop it.

It's Camping Time!

Well, younger son had a small attack of nerves on the way to the camp today, but managed to do just fine. We met his friend and they got bunks (top bunks--apparently, those are the bunks that all of the kids want) that are facing head to head in a corner. They were giggling and getting their sleeping bags and things all arranged to their satisfaction.

We even ran into another friend and his family there, too. Plus, several kids and adults from our school are working at the camp, too. So, I feel really good about it. I just hope that he has a wonderful time with his friends.

Stinky Walking Weather

Yuck! Dad and I went out to walk this morning and it was so incredibly humid that it honestly was harder to walk 3 miles today than the 6 that I walked on Saturday. The funny thing is that it was 97 degrees on Saturday morning and only 81 degrees this morning. But, with all of the humidity in the air, car exhaust, smog, and every foul smell that you can imagine was trapped in that thick air. Yuck! I felt filthy just having been in that nasty air.

Tomorrow, I am walking with Misty. Hopefully, the air will be a whole lot more wholesome to breathe. I don't like the sensation of needing to wring out my lungs before taking my next breath.

Cross-Training and Camp!

To be a little different, I decided to start doing some tapes at home to stay out of the heat and to do some serious ab work (the abs are the worst of my trouble spots right now). The waist is the only thing that is keeping me in Women's sizes right now. Firmer abs means smaller clothes!

On another note, my youngest son was invited to attend a local church camp with his best friend. Unfortunately, we only had 2 days notice about this. So, we have been running around like lunatics getting everything set up and packed. This is his first time to do anthing like this, so I am the worried Mama, but I do want him to have a good time.

One of the drawbacks of having a child with autism (particularly an oldest child) is that it is really easy to forget that the younger child is capable of vastly different things than the older child. I am afraid that I have really (unintentionally) held him back from trying things. For example, my parents taught him how to ride a bike this week. All of his friends from school have been riding bikes for years now. Oops. We also need to work on some other sports related skills. But, now my older child is feeling left out because he struggles so much with these skills. We have offerred to purchase a 3 wheeler type bike and he told us that he wants to ride a bike just like everyone else rides. We will begin trying to help him learn to balance on a bike and maybe (with lots of prayer) he can learn to ride.

Tomorrow, I am walking with Dad. Bright and early. I'd really like to do another 6 mile route, but we will see how time goes with this. I have to be sure that younger son is ready for camp on time. So, I will play it by ear. And try not to cry!

I completed 6 miles today!

Wow! It took me all day to get around to typing this up because I was so sleepy! I met my Dad at 7:30 am this morning and we walked the first 3 miles together and then I just re-traced our steps to add an additional 6 miles. I am so proud of myself!

My regular walking partner, Misty, hurt her back, so I am not sure how much walking she will be doing for the next few days, but I can always walk with Dad. But, since she is convalescing, we are planning our first annual, "Crop for the Cure" to help with fundraising for the 3-Day.

We should know about our (fingers crossed) location tomorrow. Can't wait to begin publicizing it! As soon as we can finalize the info, I will post it here and hope you all can help me to spread the news. Also, remember the t-shirts for sale at my Cafepress.com store. Just click the link on the right side to check them out. All proceeds support the 3-Day Walk as well.

Weather Woes

The weather is fighting me like crazy. I woke up this morning with a horrible sinus headache, so I didn't walk. I figured that I would walk later in the day when the temperature finally went down. But, then we had a lightning storm, so I decided to spend more quality time with my elliptical trainer. Oh well.

Hopefully, tomorrow I can do an outside walk. I'd better actually quit playing with my new hobby (digital scrapbooking) and go to bed at a reasonable time since I will have to hit the road by 7 am in order to avoid the worst of the heat.

But, darn, the layouts that I am doing are so CUTE! See the one at the top right of the screen.

Just Plugging Along...

As of this morning, I have lost exactly 31 pounds! So, yay for me!
I have been walking in the early mornings with my Dad this week, desperately trying to stay out of the horrible heat and humidity. It was 101 degrees yesterday, not a lot of fun for a fair chick like me. Next week, the friend that I usually walk with will likely be available again.

10,000 steps in one day!

Okay, after figuring out that there is a feature on my elliptical trainer that will count backwards from 10,000 steps, and determining that the stride length is set to make those steps the equivalent of a 5 mile walk, I decided that I would use that for my training. At least there are no dogs to bite me in the butt!

Whew! I did it in two bursts of 5,000 steps with a 10 minute water and potty break in the middle. That break sure helps to make sure that my feet don't get too numb from sitting on those pedals. But, it sure is a lot harder than plain ol' walking. This is like doing a jog uphill the whole way. I could hardly walk when I got off of the thing.

Plus, my legs and joints ached as I lay in bed. I got up to eat some strawberries to up my potassium levels and take some alleve so that I wouldn't cramp really badly. After that, I was able to sleep.

We'll see if I can keep it up.

Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!

Many thanks to the Whetstone family and the Chartrand family for their contributions to help me raise funds for the 3-Day Walk! I am constantly amazed with the generosity of these people who believe in me to do this walk.

I am overwhelmed. Thanks.

Yay!

For the past two days, my friend Misty has called me at the crack of dawn and I head over to her house to walk together. It sure goes faster when you have someone to talk to--and we do! It's truly social time as well as time to take care of me. I am loving every minute of it.

Today, we walked 5 miles before it got too hot. I am supposed to walk 6 tomorrow, but I may keep it to 5 until Sunday since I am really feeling my knees. Misty's husband uses Osteo-Bi-Flex and says that it helps him alot. So, I will get some today and see how it goes.

Still hoping to be under 200 lbs. for my anniversary. 12 days, including today. Hoping that I can make it. This it the first short term goal that I have set for myself and it will stink horribly if I don't make it.

Well, time to take a quick shower and go grocery shopping. Got a huge bag of hand me downs from Misty (her fat clothes, my skinny clothes!). Can't wait to dig through and see what works. Yipee!