In So Many Words

I know there has been a distinct lack of posting from me lately about my son and the issues we have been dealing with related to his autism. This is primarily because things at school have not been going well for him. I honestly don’t know if any of the staff from the school read my blog, and I would hate to jeopardize anything that we are still in process on due to offending someone or to give people the wrong impression of how I feel about them based on my venting on a particular day.

I am really curious how other bloggers with special needs children handle this. Do you just let it all out for the sake of release and of letting your readers know how things are going with you? Do you only write about the positive stuff? Do you wait until things are resolved and write about it then?

I think whatever I decide, I have to go forward with the realization that anyone could be reading what I write (duh, like that’s a news flash!) and make sure that I am comfortable with what I am sharing. But I’m still not sure what that will look like.

It has definitely been a frustrating couple of months for us, and while I am relieved that the frustration and stress level hasn’t spilled over too much at home, I am alternately sad and angry about how hard school is for him right now.

So, fellow bloggers and special needs moms, can you tell me if you have grappled with this question and what decision you came to? If you already posted about it, can you point me to your post?

Sunday Best is a collection of my favorite links from blogs I have read in the past week (or sometimes a bit more if I get behind!) Posts may range from thought-provoking or challenging to instructive or informational, with a dose of fun and light-heartedness thrown in occasionally for good measure.

No Pick Outs! – Some food-inspired thoughts from The Gang’s Momma at The Gang’s All Here! about adoption, the Great Commission and the Word of God. Sounds like heavy stuff, I know, but this is well worth the read.

A Message for the Village – A too-true post by Caitlin at Welcome to Normal about how we don’t always ask for help from those around us, even when we really need it. This really resonates with me and is a good reminder to those of with friends who may be struggling without showing it.

Learning About Friendship by K.I. Al-Ghani – A review of a book about friendship skills for children with Asperger’s and High-Functioning Autism by Maddy at Whitterer on Autism. I have placed this on my list of must-get books for Michael.

Aspergers Children and Manipulative Behavior – Interesting article at My Aspergers Child about various forms of manipulative behavior and how to address them (with “manipulative” being used merely to describe the type of behavior without connotating a “bad” child). I was especially interested to see something I have tried to describe from my experiences with Michael being given a name – “confusion promotion.” I’m not sure he does it on purpose, but sometimes I feel like we have gotten so far away from where we started that I’m not even sure what the original disagreement was about!

Auditory Processing Strategies for the Classroom – I am often commenting to Michael’s team at school that I don’t think they realize how much of the verbal information that the other children pick up doesn’t register with him. This article at National Autism Resources has a great list of suggestions that could be implemented for a child with this sort of difficulty.

Please feel free to share your favorites from the week in the comments – I’ll be sure to check them out!

Bob @ ChristianPF.com (Christian Personal Finance) is giving away an new iPod Touch, something I would love to have to use with Michael.

Having read through a few of the posts at CPF, I am definitely interested enough to keep reading. One of the best posts I found so far is How to sell your stuff on Ebay, since this is something I have been wanting to do and been slightly afraid to try.

This may have to move from my Someday/Maybe list to my Projects list. Hmmm.

Okay, so there has been a lot of hype over the last few months about the Revised FTC Endorsement Guidelines, especially as they apply to bloggers.

Since I have gotten a few free books and other products to review on my blog over the past couple of years, I figured I’d better get my act together and write my own disclosure policy. I will be putting this up as an official page on my blog shortly.

I really wasn’t sure what to say though, so I checked out DisclosurePolicy.org first. They actually have a little wizard that will generate a disclosure policy for you to use on your site. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really figure out where I fit in for some of the questions and was a bit confused by the whole thing, so, I’m just going to tell you how I do things and hope I cover it all. If you have any questions about this information, you can contact me at trish1225(at)gmail(dot)com.

My Official Disclosure Policy

1. I do sometimes receive free books or other products to review for my blog. I always mention in a review if the item was given to me, and I will often pass it on via a giveaway if it is practical to do so (i.e. the book isn’t damaged or highlighted to death or it’s not a consumable product that I had to use to do the review).

2. All opinions expressed are my own, regardless of whether an item was given to me for review. I will admit, however, that I hate to slam anyone or anything and that, if I wasn’t a big fan of something, I will try to focus on the positive aspects of the book or product. If I really think something is not beneficial in any way, I will either post that opinion or decline to do the review at all.

3. I may publish paid content or sponsored posts or accept payment for a review. This will be disclosed in the post and will not affect the content of my review.

4. I am involved in affiliate marketing, including but not limited to Amazon.com and Future Horizons.

Okay, I think that just about covers it. I’m curious how many of you have a disclosure policy on your blog. I would love to take a look at what you have to see if I forgot anything important, so please feel free to leave me a link in the comments if you have one.

This Autism/Asperger’s Blog Hop was just started by Sueberry Lane, and I learned of it from Autism Learning Felt.

I haven’t used this type of link-up tool before, but when you add your blog, it will show up everywhere this particular one is posted. Pretty cool, huh?!?

Anyway, this is the original description, so please feel free to join in if it applies to you:

Please list your Autism / Asperger’s Syndrome Blog here.

Autism Advocate sites and stores are welcome also.

Even if your blog is not an “Autism Blog” but you have children on the spectrum I’d love to have you join the blog hop. This is a great way to connect with others that can relate to your story and lend a kind ear.

Have fun visiting the linked blogs and hopefully finding some new resources…and friends!

Besides catching up on dishes and laundry and dental work and doctor’s appointments and little things like updating Michael’s behavior plan and adding a safe crisis plan to the IEP (more on those topics later), I have had some time over the past month to think about where I want to go with this blog.

I have loved blogging since the moment I started over two years ago, but I have also put a lot of unnecessary stress on myself trying to reconcile my analytical side that wants to write only helpful, informative posts about things like advocacy and therapies and resources with my more stream-of-consciousness side that wants to talk about whatever is on my mind at a given point in time, good or bad.

At one point, I actually did set up a separate blog called Autism Interrupted, where I would go to ramble if I felt too depressed or frustrated to write something coherent and positive for this blog. After thinking it through, I think what I really need to do is separate the two blogs by purpose rather than by how I am feeling. (Yeah, sometimes it takes me a while to figure out the obvious! )

Okay, so all that is to say that I have decided to continue both blogs, but with a much clearer vision for what they will represent. I even wrote a new tagline and short description to clarify my purpose here:

Another Piece of the Puzzle

Awareness, Resources and Hope for Autism Spectrum Disorder

Another Piece of the Puzzle is a blog designed to raise awareness of the challenges facing parents and children dealing with autism and to serve as a resource for anyone affected by the disorder. Through this site, it is my desire to offer information on topics such as IEPs and advocacy, behavioral and sensory strategies and a variety of therapies and treatments related to autism spectrum disorder. Above all, I want to let you know there is hope for a better tomorrow!

While there may be occasions where I cross post and include personal stuff here that relates specifically to autism, in general I am going to post about my own journey at Autism Interrupted. So for more on what’s going on with me personally, feel free to pop on over!

My regular readers may have noticed that I haven’t been blogging much lately. Although I have enjoyed the last two-plus years of blogging and all that it entails more than I can say, I am in a place right now where I must focus on some other areas of my life that are sorely in need of attention.

It really comes down to this issue I have been dealing with of recognizing your limitations and accepting them. That is especially hard for me when blogging is something I love, but I have come to accept that for right now I just cannot continue to make it a priority.

I am going to leave this blog up for the time being and may return to it in the future. If nothing else, I hope that it will serve as a resource for other moms and dads who are looking for information on autism — if you are just stumbling upon my blog now, you can use the nested menu at the top of the page or the category list and search features in the right sidebar to see if I have posted about the topic you are looking for. The Archives menu in particular includes a link to a list of my Autism Resource posts and a list of the posts I did for 5 Minutes for Special Needs.

For anyone who wishes to keep in touch, feel free to connect with me on Facebook or email me at trish1225[at]gmail[dot]com. The comments on this post will be open for a few days and then closed.

And, by the way, just because I’m not blogging doesn’t mean I’m not still decluttering, so if you committed to the challenge, you’re not off the hook! Check out Suzanne’s 365 Days of Decluttering blog if you need some additional inspiration to keep going.

Just the other day, a comment was left on my blog regarding a new service for allowing readers to link up to your blog, called inlinkz. Since I am just getting ready to start using that sort of thing with the 365 Days of Decluttering Challenge, I decided to check it out.

Here’s where you can read the whole story about how impressed I am with the people behind this, or you can jump down for the bottom line.

When I first went to the site, most of the links to more information weren’t working, but within a couple of hours, I had a comment from one of the site developers letting me know that they were actually in the process of going live at that moment and that the links would be operational very soon.

So I went back and signed up and did a test list on a draft blog post. When I entered my link and name, both items showed up as a two-column list on my blog. I realized that could get very long and messy, especially if people were linking to a specific blog post. Since the developer had left me a comment, I emailed her and let her know my initial thoughts.

To my amazement, she emailed me back and said she would add more options to the site for how to display each list and asked me to let her know about anything else I was looking for. (You can follow inlinkz on twitter to keep up with them as well.)

The Bottom Line

Inlinkz is very simple to use and configurable in terms of what shows up and how much space it can take up on your blog. You can put end times on your lists, moderate them, edit the configuration and even see stats of how much each link was clicked on.

I’ve put a simple one-column list with an end date of January 31st down below if you’d like to try it out. Just click the “add your link” button and enter a link to your blog homepage. (Fine print: links going to any weird locations will be deleted!)

I entered my own link so you could see how it will look – the text shown will be whatever you put in the “Description” field.

Well, I by no means think I am deserving of this award, but I am thankful to Leah at Just Me for letting me know I am appreciated. If you haven’t met Leah, she is a pastor’s wife and mom to 4 girls, one of whom has special needs. She has also embarked on a spiritual journey that she is blogging about at 90 Days of Solitude.

I’ve been somewhat on again/off again with blogging in recent months, but every time I question whether I should continue, I realize how much it means to me to have this little place of my own and to connect with so many wonderful people. So I am working on not feeling guilty for posting irregularly or for not having time to visit other blogs and comment. I just try to enjoy the time I do get to spend online.

I have, however, spent a little bit of time working on my blog admin lately, and one of the things I did was to close the comments on posts older than 90 days. I hope it doesn’t turn people off, but it has really cut down the amount of spam considerably. Anyone who wants to contact me directly with any question or comment can still easily do so through my contact form.

I’ve also been playing around with the new version of my blog theme (Thesis 1.6) and was very happy to see the ability to assign colors right from the options page. With the nested navigational options, I was able to include my main categories at the top along with the pages I wanted but not have it look too cluttered or overwhelming. I can easily change the background image whenever I want and modify the text/link colors to match.

A couple of other things I did were to add a widgetized fat footer (thanks to this super-easy tutorial from Thesis Theme Tools) and to put my blogroll back in the sidebar. The blogroll only shows the most recently updated blogs, but you can still see the entire list via the Blogroll link in the footer.

Oh, and one last thing. Through a post on Howtomakemyblog.com, I found a plugin that allows you to add your Twitter ID in your comments on my blog. You just enter your Twitter username (no html or @) in the box below the comments box before you submit your comment, and a link to your Twitter profile will appear below your name. You only have to enter your Twitter ID one time and then it will save it just like it saves your name, etc.

Let me know what you think about any or all of the changes. I’d love any feedback or other ideas you have.

And then go visit some blogs that truly deserve a Best Blog Award —

• Simple Mom
• Steady Mom
• Zen Habits
• Becoming Minimalist

It’s 1:01 pm on Saturday, and I am starting a new blog post. It’s part of the Mom’s 30-Minute Blog Challenge over at SteadyMom, so I am giving myself 30 minutes to write this post and publish it. I will have to go in on Tuesday to link up to the challenge, but that’s it.

So, what to talk about? Well, I wanted to tell you about my amazing new discovery (new to me, anyway) that has gotten me back into the fun of blog hopping and commenting while still keeping up with my favorite blogs. It’s the Next bookmark in Google Reader.

I found it by clicking on the Settings link and then going into the Goodies section. All I had to do was drag it to my toolbar and then I can click it at any time to go to the next unread blog post in my Google Reader. I can leave a comment, click around, do whatever I want, and then just click the Next button again when I want to read another post. I love it, and it has gotten me totally turned back on to commenting again!

You may have seen this before, but I thought it was cute. This is the page I saw when I clicked Next after all the posts had been read:


And when I clicked on the “End of the Internet” link, this is what I got:

So, if you saw a comment from me today, please know I have been reading your blog all along but just gotten out of the habit of clicking through to leave a comment. Shameful of me, really, because the interaction and community is such a critical part of why we all do this.

I also wanted to share a couple of the things I read today that really caught my attention:

• How To Give Yourself to Whatever the Moment Brings, and Forget Stress at Zen Habits
• The Sparkle Effect at Adventures in Autism (this one made me cry in a good way, and not just because the story takes place right next to my hometown).

So, that’s it for me right now. It’s 1:21 pm, and I am getting ready to hit the publish button. And just in time really, because me son is calling me to come and see what he is working on.

*****Visit the 30-Minute Blog Challenge to read more posts or find out how to join in.*****