Suzanne Calling

Would you please send it my way? I'm so stressed out by all the Jane crap that my intentions of reading for Psych fell by the wayside. I have an 8am meeting tomorrow, then I'll have another appointment and a lunch date. The plan was to work on Interactive Media tomorrow. I guess the plans of going to the State Fair on Sunday are looking pretty dim. It's probably just as well, as Chef appears to have the same attentional issues right now. And with that, I'm heading to bed. Perhaps I can get up earlier and bang out an hour of reading before that meeting...

Do you have one of those? I'm being pulled in a bunch of different directions, between school, the kids, the nursing home, Jane, the vacuum, trying to find a physical therapist. I made a list today and there's 34 things I need to do this week. Aaaack! I need a 25 hour day so I can get all this stuff done. Is anyone working on that? I will say this-that phone has definitely helped on one front. I can multitask while I'm waiting in line somewhere and check that email or college web site. Someday, this stuff will ease up. It'd better, because half of that list is Mom and Jane tasks and responsibilities. When I get my normal life back, it'll seem so relaxed. Think I can sneak in a soak in the tub?

This certainly has been a roller coaster week. *Sent a kid to camp. Picked the kid up from camp three days later. *Drove to Port St. Lucie for an interview. Two and a half hours each way. Won't know if I got a job until September. *Have a stupid, bruised RSD foot again. Apparently, if that foot walks on gravel, it turns purple. *Got a HUGE gift card from a major retailer to shop and vlog and HAVE A CONTEST. Oh wait, did I tell you that it's to do a room makeover? For a kid? The one who got sent home from camp? I'm sitting here with said gift card and perusing their web site without said child seeing what's going on. I think we need a few day's distance between what happened at camp and a shopping trip to redo his room. Other crap is going on, which I wrote a blog post about, but I'm not quite ready to publish. It can be summed up in stating that people who frustrated us in may still frustrate us. It's not my conversation to have.

Living with a child on the Autism spectrum, you learn to dread certain things. Summer breaks. school vacations. going to sleep. The first two, because any alteration in the routine is a recipe for trouble. The third, because you never know what havoc your child will cause while you try to recharge your body from the stresses the child has caused all day long. In our case, as Game Teen has aged, some things have improved, but it's a given that the lack of a rigid schedule during school breaks means that he is going to nag you incessantly for games, get more game time and as a result, become more of a pain in the ass. If you cut back the games, well, he will make your life a living hell, bugging you every 2.5 minutes "Can I play?" The child does not know how to interpret the increasing frustration in anyone's voice, so he will nag/monologue/drive you to insanity to the point that he's punished and doesn't fathom why you've told him fifty times to STOP, da...

Thanks to the fun of last month, this month is going to be interesting. Ed went back to work Saturday after three weeks out of work. I had some hiccups in reviving my Unemployment claim. This means there is NO money coming in until June 23rd. The problem is there is rent to pay, along with water, electric, cable/internet and car insurance-not to mention Game Teen's medications. I have to admit, we don't have much to deal with, but when you have no money, these things are overwhelming. The bright side is that when we both have decent jobs again (even one of us at this point), we will be in great shape. We have been making do on about two grand a month. A decent job means we'll be able to get rid of the credit card billss and change the cell phone arrangement currently in place. I've got stuff that we're not using and want to get rid of, but how to do it? Ebay has been a so so channel for selling. We had two yard sales last year, one at our house, one at the...

There are few things I don't put in the blog. I don't blog about some people, because when I do, my husband gets a lot of grief about it and told to make me stop. He tells them the same thing every time "I have no control over what she does or says." It's true, just as I don't control what he does or says. Suffice to say, the parties I do not write about are the cause for a lot of concern and worry right now. Some of it is preventable bullshit, some of it is the aftermath of previous stress on another person. A meal out with this person last night just drove home the point that thinks are not okay, nor will they ever be again. After 36 hours of extreme stress, today was almost a normal day for us. We went to Bed Bath and Beyond to find the 60 cup Keurig K cup sampler (it only has 3 varieties we haven't tried and several we have tons of already), out for mexican for lunch, then did grocery shopping and did some housecleaning. A funny story-Chef made...

The phone rang at 8:15am. "Suzanne, they changed their mind. The project isn't happening." I went and turned in my stuff and I'll look for other employment/cross my fingers on the SSDI appeal/hope they call for the next phase sooner. What did I do with my day off? Much the same as the night before, spending time at our local hospital. No, not me, the kids or Ed. All I'll say is that I'm normally empathetic, but in this case, I've no patience to deal with the situation. Unfortunately, I think we'll be dealing with it for a while. Please tell me that all this bad karma will result in something good happening soon. Please?

Friday, I began working again. It's a job that looks very interesting. Fun coworkers. Training, depending on traffic, is 30 to 45 minutes from home. Weird, considering everyone lives near me, but hey, I don't make the rules (or pay the mileage). Today, the boss said no overtime, which meant that we should have left at 4:15. Works for me, I had to drive home, grab the boys, then drive another 30 miles to Chef's Cub Scout meeting. I wasn't sweating things, because I walked in the front door Friday afternoon at 5:35. Plenty of time to go get the kids from the friend's house, go home, change, grab a snack and then be on the road. Make or break to be at scouts on time is to be starting the car at 6:15. 4:35 rolls around and we're still working. I'm getting a bit antsy, but not too bad. 4:50, done with that section-but the trainer starts ANOTHER one that he says will take about 45 minutes. OH NO!!!!! I can see the look on the faces of the two people f...

Let's see, some of the past 24 hours. Daylight savings time messed up my sleep cycle (which is getting better). I get to sleep at 3:00am. At 6:45am, Chef Jr climbs into bed because he had a nightmare that his bed was shaking. He doesn't believe me that it's almost time to get up for school because it's DARK outside. I had to explain the daylight savings time thing. 7:30am, Gameboy is awake and eats a huge bowl of cereal, then asks for another. In his mind, he normally has two bowls-kid bowls. He whines and complains, but no more cereal. 8:05am, he leaves for the bus and I head back to bed. About 15 minutes later, I go back to sleep. 9:15am, my cell phone rings. Screw it, I am NOT answering it-they can wait. Then Ed's cell phone rings and we realize that crap, that must be the school. Then mine rings again. Double crap. 9:20am, I am on the phone with Ms. B, the Assistant Principal. Gameboy again freaked out and ran out of the classroom to go to the media...

For years now, I've suspected that Gameboy had another mental health issue that wasn't diagnosed. His highs are too high, his lows are inconsolable. Those of you who have witnessed one of his many meltdowns know that his lows are beyond that of the typical toddler temper tantrum. With that in mind, I thought that Gameboy might also be Bipolar, perhaps rapid cycling. At the time that I mentioned it to his psychiatrist, it was stated that he was far too young to make that kind of diagnosis effectively. More time and data would be needed to saddle the child with yet another disorder to manage. So we watched and waited. In many respects, he'd been pretty good for a long time. To the degree that I speak for Ed and myself that when I say I was holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The school did some boneheaded moves, ignoring what we've said about the child and his obsessions. Several times in December, he was allowed things that he shouldn't ...