There is no one outside monitoring the plants so I rush inside to customer service and ask, "What do I have to do to get that tree?" I pay for it at the service desk. They call a couple of young, strapping guys to come over to package it up and load it into my SUV.
For over a week I'd been asking my wonderful husband to go with me to pick one out. He's been so busy with work, among other excuses, so it hadn't happened yet. I had given up and was about to pull out the old handy artificial tree out of the garage. As much as I have come to loath that fake tree -there's only a week left until Christmas. It seemed pointless to buy a live tree at this point. $10.00 changed everything.
Now I'm not saying it's the most perfect tree I've ever seen. There are a few gaps in it, but it's natural. The thing about nature and art in my opinion, is there is no such thing as perfection. It is what it is.
My prodigal son (22) returned home last night to help his father put the tree into the stand. He was in a charming mood after a week full of drama. (That's a whole other story!) I thought he and his girlfriend were coming over to help decorate, but I ended up doing most of the decorating myself, along with Blue. I really didn't want any help anyway. I wanted to do it my way, as my husband would tell you, that's how I want everything.
Hubby put on our vast selection of Christmas music...(his addiction of choice -music and cookies, mine - martinis and wine). BTW -he hates when I write about him. He and my eldest son went out to get take out. The rest of us (Mom, son's girlfriend V- and Blue) sang, danced, drank wine (Mom and I) and finished trimming the tree. As we finished, Red descended down from his room and put a huge smile on his face when he saw the tree. He put the star on the top. It is so rare to see a genuine smile on his face, so that was awesome.
Tree decorating, music, wine, good food and all children present made for a simple yet beautiful night.
Logging you in...
Adelaide Dupont · 285 weeks ago
And for those of us who knew and appreciated these points in high school to a greater or lesser extent - always good to have a refresher and feel them through the current and future generations who we survived to be able to see.
I especially appreciated points 5, 7 and 10.
And young women not settling or settling down yet is a good thing.
"It's never too late to live our dreams" - but it may be too early for some of them!
And 8 of course.
nicole · 243 weeks ago
Risa · 230 weeks ago
LAH · 221 weeks ago
Maira L. Coral · 216 weeks ago
I was looking for information for my Multi-Genre Disability Research Project from my Early Childhood Special Education class on the web, when suddenly I came across your blog. I started reading this out of curiosity and I want to tell you that as you said yourself, you will not be Amanda Gorman, but you managed to make me shed some tears, perhaps because I felt totally identified with your words, especially in the part that you speak of your son. My son also has Asperger's syndrome, he is 19 years old and he is in the second semester of College. Also like yours, he takes classes from home, likewise my eldest daughter is also taking college classes from her room. At the same time, that I work as a preschool teacher from my kitchen through a computer, my husband sleeps in the room during the day because he works at night. Also in the afternoons I myself take virtual school classes. I am a 51-year-old Latin woman who began to learn the English language as adult, so maybe you find some deficiencies in my writing, however, I was very moved by how proud you express yourself about your son. Referent your mother, I liked the humorous tone that you give when your talk about her, so I did not want to miss this opportunity and stopped my assignments for a moment to let you know that your words do make a difference, since they reach the heart of at least those who have opportunity to read you. I want confess you that is the most long I have written to someone I don't know, because your words inspired me, thank you...
Gavin Bollard · 209 weeks ago
Thanks for this post. I've been very distracted of late and so this was how I found out about our friend Kate. Kate's struggles were very real but they were so constant and so wide-ranging that it was difficult for people around her to address them. I think it's going to take a while longer for me to process all this.
I learned so much from Kate because she was always quick to point out the many injustices in the world. In her glory days, she was very much a crusader and she cared for everyone. Over the years, as her situation took its toll, I came to realise that it was the fact that she couldn't be put in a single specific category, that made the system fail her. She needed help that they weren't set up to provide.
She needed more care and she needed to be less alone. I'm so sorry that this has happened.
For a long while we were corresponding almost every day but a couple of months ago, I realised that she had become so stressed that nearly every interaction I had with her was starting to trigger her. I backed away to give her a bit more space. She only had a little time that she could stand to be online and there were too many things that she wanted to do in that time. I thought that by taking a step back, she could reach out to more people who might be geographically closer and able to assist.
Kate was a beautiful soul and she will be sorely missed by all of us.
diyalabs6192603 11p · 192 weeks ago
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Spoil your cat · 122 weeks ago
Many of these living arrangement aren't good, and many of the people who run those places really don't have the residents' best interest at heart. Those places are like old age homes and foster homes, where you sometimes hear horror stories. They're hard to trust. But then there are good ones, of course.
The best thing for an autistic adult is either to go on living at home or working and renting an apartment and living independently, but that isn't always an option.
Duncan · 112 weeks ago