In So Many Words

I’ve just run across this meme at Callapidder Days and thought I would join in and see how it goes. It is hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.

Basically, it’s a place to post about 5 favorite things from your week. As Susanne puts it, “It can be anything that tickled your fancy over the week. Favorite quotes, posts, happenings, scriptures, recipes, pictures, great internet finds, etc.”

Here’s my list:

1. This marvelous video of a middle school valedictorian giving a tribute to her brother, who has Down Syndrome. Here’s the link in case the video doesn’t show up in my post.

2. The announcement of a new CommentLuv plugin that’s coming very soon. Andy has definitely piqued my interest with his ramp-up campaign of a new video every couple of days – I can’t wait for the new plugin to be released so I can try it out.

3. Another great video, this one about Sensory Processing Disorder. The black and white stick figure drawings are fun, and my son laughed so hard at parts that he wanted to watch the video again! Here’s the video on YouTube.

4. The fact that my dental implant is in and isn’t causing me too much pain, just a bit of residual soreness. In a few months, I will be able to get it crowned and smile big again.

5. The support I have received this week since renaming/moving my blog. I have appreciated each and every comment and am surprised and thankful to see my Feedburner count going up a bit.

What are your favorite things this week?

I mentioned last time I posted that I was trying out a new, cleaner layout for my blog. One of the things that I had in my sidebar for a long time is a widget for my Google Reader shared items.

These are things that I thought were worth sharing when I read them in my feeds, but I don’t really think the widget got clicked on very much. The links do show up on FriendFeed and Facebook, so at least that’s something, but I thought it might be a better idea to just share my favorite posts here once in a while.

So, besides the posts shown in the list above, here are some things that I have enjoyed lately:

• Asperger Land from Moms of Special Needs Children – a game for moms of kids with Asperger’s; you can’t help but love the “Ka-Ka Hitting the Fan Cards”!
• beyond the window of opportunity from Floortime Lite Mama – some reflections on the sense of urgency often instilled in moms of young children on the spectrum
• On Motherhood from Whiskey In My Sippy Cup – a profoundly moving essay about why we moms all do what we do
• How to Create a Minimalist Computer Experience from Zen Habits – some great ideas on how to clean up your computer desktop and interact more efficiently with your computer. I followed his suggestions about removing everything from my desktop except for a beautiful picture for the wallpaper and am now using Launchy to open any programs or documents I need. I love it!

What’s the best post you’ve read lately? Please share it in the comments on this post!

Hope everybody is ready for Thanksgiving! We are blessed with a family that is large enough not to be able to celebrate at our house (how’s that for being thankful for a small home!), so we will be traveling to State College tomorrow for our holiday.

Today while the TSS is here, I am going to get our Christmas decorations down from the attic so they are ready to go this weekend. I can’t really do it while I am alone with Michael because I can’t trust him not to follow me up the ladder into the attic, so this should work out well.

Here’s a few fun links for your Wednesday morning – hope you enjoy!

HE’S A POET!

Donna at Amazed By His Grace has shared her son Jonathan’s poem that was published in the first issue of GLIMPSE, a new publication from ICDL. His poem, I Love Butterflies, is very good (see page 12), and I also really liked Please Listen To My Heart by Roy Bedward on page 16.

MAKE IT FROM SCRATCH

So, I mentioned the other day that I was Twittering again. Well, I saw a Tweet from @feelslikehome asking for posts on homemade items to feature in a carnival she was hosting. I sent over my Macaroni and Cheese recipe, and she included it!

Check out all the great recipes, craft ideas, and other homemade tips in the Make It From Scratch Carnival #91. What’s really funny about this whole internet/blogging thing is she lives in my town but I don’t know her.

MORE TWITTER FUN

Also on the Twitter front, Bonnie at Autism Family Adventures is planning Autism Twitter Day to promote positive autism awareness. Visit her to find out more details.

TRAVEL TIPS

If you’re getting ready to travel with young children or children who have special needs, take a look at these Travel Tips from Danette at Everyday Adventures. You’ll be glad you did!

Picture courtesy of Hammer51012

Well, I started out well this morning working on my to do list, but of course got sidetracked – which seems to happen more and more easily these days. It started out innocently enough by spending just two minutes Plurking (which I have just been getting back into). Clicked on a couple of links – anyone else have a cat who likes to sleep in odd places??

I did check my Google Reader briefly but only looked at the list view so I wouldn’t lose an entire hour reading posts. Found a great post at If Only I Had Super Powers… about a time out box for toys (social story included at no extra charge), which reminded me of a post at Created and Called about a similar, but more extreme, situation involving the removal of all toys!

So then I meandered over to 5 Minutes for Special Needs and commented on a few posts, plus kirtsy’d Melinda’s awesome Crock Pot Beef Stew. Of course, once I’m on kirtsy, I am intrigued to see what else is on there and that led me to waste an entire 30 minutes watching Mac commercials!

So now it’s back to my to do list. I’m determined to get 10 things done this morning!

Looking for some fun stuff to enjoy as the weekend approaches??

Here’s a few links to check out:

Something Fun for the Kiddoes post at Created and Called. I never knew you could do all that with a yo-yo!

The October edition of Root & Sprout is up; my favorite article so far is “Techno Kids” on the Grow Through Laughter page, only because it is so true!

For those of you following politics, check out Clear Winner of Vice Presidential Debate? at Politics for Moms.

And today at 5 Minutes for Special Needs, I am talking about Getting Back on the (GFCF) Wagon.

What your favorite link from this week?

Okay, not that I need something else to become addicted to, but a friend at work just clued me into Pandora and I am completely hooked!

You just type in the name of a musical artist, album or song that you like and it plays that music plus similar songs from what is called the Music Genome Project. You can create different “stations” for different types of music. Also, for each song it plays, you can find out why it chose that song and give it a thumbs up or down to fine tune the selections.

It is the coolest thing, and since I am at the computer anyway . . .