In So Many Words

Okay, so I *won* the ultimate blog award not just once, but twice, in the last few days and have the dubious honor of lying to you about myself and then passing the award on to several more unsuspecting bloggers.

(Honestly, the only reason I am doing this is because I have been beyond unmotivated this weekend and have accomplished almost nothing!!)

Oh, and the award was created by Jill at Yeah. Good Times. and was awarded to me by Jean at Mommy to Two Boys and Gina at Special Happens.

Here are the rules (edited for use on a family-friendly blog):

1. You must proudly display the absolutely disgusting graphic that I have created for these purposes (put it in your post, you don’t have to put it in your sidebar, I think that would seriously be asking too much). It’s so bad that not only did I use COMIC SANS, but there’s even a little jumping, celebrating kitten down there at the bottom. It’s horrifying! But its presence in your award celebration is crucial to the memetastic process we’re creating here. If you need a higher resolution version… I totally have one!!

2. You must list 5 things about yourself, and 4 of them must be bold-faced lies. Just make some stuff up, we’ll never know; one of them has to be true, though. Of course, nobody will ever know the difference, so we’re just on the honor system here. I trust you. Except for the 4 that you lied about, you lying bastards! But don’t go crazy trying to think of stuff, you’ll see by the example I’ve set below that we’re not really interested in quality here.

3. You must pass this award on to 5 bloggers that you either like or don’t like or don’t really have much of an opinion about. I don’t care who you pick, and nobody needs to know why. I mean, you can give a reason if you want, but I don’t really care.

4. If you fail to follow any of the above rules, I will hunt you down and harass you incessantly until you either block me on Twitter or ban my IP address from visiting your blog. I don’t know if you can actually do that last thing, but I will become so annoying to you that you will actually go out and hire an IT professional to train you on how to ban IP addresses just so that I’ll leave you alone. I’m serious. I’m going to do these things. Starting with the 5 of you I’m about to pass this award on to.

5 Things About Myself Which May or May Not Be True

1. I have not bitten my nails in over eight months.
2. I am totally excited about planning a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party for my soon-to-be nine year old.
3. I wish my company would go back to a business dress code because I am really tired of wearing jeans everyday.
4. I love IEP meetings.
5. I still think the graphic looks like a bear even after seeing the “kitten” on Jill’s blog.

5 Bloggers To Whom I Am Passing This Award

• Julie at A Celebration of Our Journey
• Jeneil at Autism In a Word
• Gail at Challenges and Adventures
• Kajoli at Floortime Lite Mama
• Caitlin at Welcome to Normal

To anyone who didn’t win, first of all, I’m sure you will very soon, and I’ll leave it up to you if not making you do this meme means I like you or dislike you.

First, the older post…

Once again, I decide to link up to Blog Gems at The King and Eye after already posting something on my blog today.

The prompt for this one is to share post that tells something about you, and the one I chose is 38 Things. If you missed it the first time, I hope you like it, and you can find lots of other gems at Jen’s blog.

And now, the older song…

Writing the story earlier today about time getting older made me think of this song by one of my favorite bands, They Might Be Giants. Enjoy!

Older by They Might Be Giants

This day will soon be at an end, as the song goes, so goodnight for now!

Just in case you missed it or didn’t get a chance to enter yet, here’s a reminder about my Hallmark Recordable Storybook giveaway. All entries must be received by Midnight EST on Tuesday, December 7th.

I also wanted to let you know about a great deal Hallmark is offering on their personalized holiday greetings. Here’s the offer:

Between now and Dec. 31, enter the code Blogger25 at checkout to receive 25% off of your order of personalized holiday greetings on hallmark.com! Hallmark.com’s personalized holiday greetings collection includes customizable holiday cards, party invitations, plates and thank you cards – all photo-ready and featuring contemporary new designs. And perhaps the best part? No need to visit the post office to send out anything. Just visit Hallmark.com, pick your favorite design, customize it with a favorite photo and a personal message. Hallmark will do the rest! From printing the addresses and adding postage to mailing the cards on any date you choose, Hallmark’s got it all under control.

To enter the giveaway, visit the original review post. I am closing comments on this post so no one tries to enter here and misses out.

Hallmark Recordable Storybooks feature simple to use voice-capture technology. All you have to do is lay the book flat, press the record button and speak your message. Once you press the stop button, you will immediately hear a playback of what you have recorded and can simply re-record it if you wish to get it just right. Or, if you are happy with your recording, simply do nothing and move on to the next page.

Once you have finished making your recording, there is a switch inside the battery compartment that can be set to LOCK to protect what have done or switched back to UNLOCK to re-record a page or to erase all of the audio in the book. It’s a simple but effective safety measure to protect your recording from little fingers!

Review

For the review, I received a copy of the book All the Ways I Love You. I was instantly delighted by the adorable illustrations and touching verses. I immediately thought of a recent conversation with my brother, who is expecting his first child in March. He really wants his child to become familiar with his voice even before he is born, but my brother has to travel quite a bit for work right now.

This book would be a great tool for him to use by recording himself reading it so that his wife could play it for the baby when he is out of town. I thoroughly enjoyed trying out this book and was able to easily remove my voice so that it would be ready for my brother to use. Hopefully, he will find it as enchanting as I did!

Giveaway

I am hosting a giveaway for two Recordable Storybooks from Hallmark. Each winner will receive their choice of one of these precious keepsakes.

You can enter up to three times (one via each method listed below):
For your first entry, simply leave a comment on this post telling me how you would use the book if you won it.
One additional entry may be obtained by Tweeting about this giveaway and leaving me a comment with a link to your Tweet.
Another additional entry can also be obtained by sharing this giveaway on Facebook and leaving me a comment with a link to your Facebook post.

All entries must be received by Midnight EST on Tuesday, December 7th. The two winners will be chosen randomly and contacted via the email provided in the email field of the comment form for their address and book selection. I will announce the winners on my blog by Friday, December 10th.

For more information about the recordable storybooks, including browsing through the collection or hearing stories from other families of how they have used these keepsakes, visit Hallmark.com.

This morning I headed over to our local Intermediate Unit for a one-day conference called Maximizing Capabilities. It was put on by Central Penn Parent in conjunction with Bayada Nurses and a variety of other sponsors.

There were a variety of workshops, including one on IEP’s and another on discipline and behavior management plans, which I found quite helpful.

When I was on my way to the IEP workshop, I inadvertently entered the wrong room. As I was turning around to leave, one of the presenters asked me if they could help me. I glanced at the opening screen of their powerpoint and saw the words “Learning to Drive” and said no, that it would be a few years yet before my son was ready to drive, although he thinks he should be allowed to now.

She gave me a puzzled expression and asked if he was ambulatory. Yes, I said, with what I’m sure was an equally puzzled expression, but he’s only eight, so we’ve still got some time. Then I hurried across the hall to the correct room, where that presentation had already started.

As I settled into my seat, I glanced down at the program and saw the full name of the workshop I had just left: “Learning to Drive – Step to Achieving Power Mobility, HMS School for Children with Cerebral Palsy.”

Aha, that explains the puzzled expressions!!

Saturday 9: Friends

1. How many of your friendships have lasted more than ten years? Which of your current friends do you feel will still be important to you ten years from now?
I guess the number depends on how you define friendship. There are a number of people who I would still consider a friend, but I don’t necessarily spend time with them on a regular basis anymore.

In terms of who I still see or communicate with often from ten years ago, there are probably only a few – my husband, some couples from our first small group, our former pastor’s family who now lives in Nashville, and a few other people. I have two very good friends right now that I can’t imagine not being close to for the rest of my life.

2. When you look at yourself in the mirror, what’s the first thing you look at?
My hair. I have rarely been happy with it. I recently got it cut short and am much more happy with it now.

3. Who was the most recent person on your missed call list on your cell phone? What’s your relationship with the person?
My husband Bob. I am terrible about answering my cell phone, so that’s usually where everyone ends up.

4. What did your last text message you received on your cell phone say?
That I had a dentist’s appointment. I am not a texter and actually had to ask them to stop doing it because it costs me money!

5. How would you “label” yourself?
mom, wife, friend, advocate, bookworm, blogger

6. What was your favorite age that you’ve been?
This one.

7. What is your current desk top picture? What’s its significance?
Not sure if this refers to my computer desktop or my physical desk at work. At work, I have three pictures of my son at different ages because he is my inspiration.

8. What was the last thing you said to someone that you‘d like to take back?
Probably telling my son “No” or “Not now” when he wants my attention. I have to remind myself of what it was like to desperately want him to interact with us and be thankful for his ability and desire to spend time with me.

9. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to go back in time and fix all your mistakes which would you choose?
A million bucks. (I could buy a nice apology gift with that!)

Saturday 9 is a fun meme that I used to participate in over at Another Piece of the Puzzle. I decided to check out this week’s questions on a whim, and they were right up my alley, so here goes:

Saturday 9: Bad Day

1. Is there anything that you tend to do to cheer up when you are having a bad day?
My favorite thing is to go off by myself and read a book. Peace and quiet combined with a little escapism is the best thing for me. Of course, a nice piece of chocolate doesn’t hurt either!

2. What’s the last card game you played, and with whom did you play?
That would have been Go Fish, although we played with a deck of Dora Crazy Eights cards. I know, we get wild around here – in this case, we being my son Michael and me.

3. What’s the last board game you played, and with whom did you play?

It was actually Mousetrap, but I would like to take this opportunity to share with you how cute the new Lego games are. We have the Race 3000 one, and you build the track first and then play the game. The interactive die makes the game different every time.

4. What’s the last computer game you played, and with whom did you play?
Boy, can you tell Michael and I are the game addicts in this household? I actually just heard about Superbook.tv on the 700 Club (which I rarely watched but happened to see part of today), so I showed it to Michael and the fact that they have games and there is a robot drew him in. The last game I played with him before coming in here to blog was Superbook Says.

5. Is there somewhere you’d like to visit but have not, and where is it?
Good question. There are so many places I haven’t visited. It’s been fifteen years since I moved East and the closest I’ve been to NYC is the Bronx Zoo, so I’d probably start there. I would also like to take my son to Disneyworld, but I was there when I was 16, so I guess that doesn’t count.

I would be willing to go a lot of places if I had someone to take me around and help me not get lost. I’m not really an adventurous person when it comes to that.

6. Think of your favorite movie (or a movie you really like, if you can’t think of a favorite). Some people say that the reasons you love your favorite movie are related to what you value in romantic relationships. How is this true or untrue in your case?

One of my favorite movies is Sliding Doors, despite the fact that the characters engage in a lot of activities which would be offensive to some of my readers and of which I do not approve either.

With that said, I love the idea of how one moment in time can change your life, and the way this movie takes you through what would happen depending on whether she catches the train or has to wait for the next one is fascinating to me.

As for the second part of the question, I guess that would be true to a large degree.

(What, you thought I was going to say the BBC production of Price & Prejudice? Yes, of course, that’s my true favorite, but everybody already knows about that one.)

7. What physical attributes do you find the most attractive?
Nice eyes and facial features.

8.How many people live in your house? Tell us about them.
Three people live in our house – my husband Bob, my son Michael and me. Michael would also want to include Wallace and Willow, our two white cats who are brother and sister.

Bob is a creative guy stuck in a boring job, Michael is a bright kid who is learning that it’s okay to be different, and I’m just trying to keep it all together.

9. Ever punch someone in the face?
No, but wouldn’t that make a great story if I had.

I often share about books I have read, and I do read a lot of books!  But lately I have also been getting into watching movies, especially since we now have the ability to access Netflix through our Wii.

Here are a few of the flicks that I have seen lately and would recommend checking out (I’m linking to them on Amazon because it so much easier with the widget right inside of Blogger):

Arranged – the story of two young women who meet while working in a school and find they have a lot in common.  Despite one being an Orthodox Jew and the other being a Muslim, they connect through their understanding of each other’s conservative lifestyle and the prospect of an arranged marriage.

This was a truly wonderful movie – I enjoyed every moment of it!

Outsourced – A fun story about a US call center manager who is sent to India to train his replacement as the company moves order fulfillment overseas.  He goes with the intention to teach them about America and finds out that he needs to learn about India.  This was a very fun movie.

Timer – What if you could know exactly when you would meet your soulmate?  The Timer promises to do just that, but our main character’s timer is still blank and she is over 30 (oh, the horror!).  Basically a nice romantic comedy with the twist of a device that makes me think of eHarmony on steroids, this was a cute movie, although it isn’t as clean as the others I’ve listed so far.

My Faraway Bride
I stumbled upon this movie one day while Bob & Michael were out of town and really enjoyed it.  The two main characters meet and fall in love instantly, but she is suddenly called home to India due to a family illness.  He decides to follow her there and miraculously finds her (well, maybe not such a miracle, as she turns out to be the most popular Bollywood film star in the country!).  A lot of fun!

As you can tell, I am mostly into light romantic comedy in my movies, just like my books.  This is definitely an escape valve for me.  I apologize if any of these have any offensive parts in them – I have to admit I tend to forget about the specifics.

What fun flicks would you recommend?

I need to beef up our Netflix queue, but I don’t want to end up watching a bunch of crap, so I am asking for your recommendations on what movies to request.

Please leave a comment and give me some ideas. I primarily like romantic comedies, but not too raunchy, and good drama or action without too much violence. I absolutely do not like anything with horror.

I am also open to kids and family flicks that aren’t painful for adults to sit through, i.e. not The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl!

I don’t know if that’s enough to go on, but I would love to hear what films you always recommend to people.

Pictures of decorating the tree seems to be the theme for today (and a lovely theme it is!), so I’ll share ours as well. I am just so happy that it is done! It didn’t seem to take as long this year, possibly because Michael is so much more helpful now.

Michael helping to decorate the tree

The finished tree before we pushed it into the corner and moved the furniture back around it

Wallace resting on the soft tree skirt

Willow trying to attack whatever she thinks is underneath the tree skirt!