In So Many Words

Today is my son Michael’s 7th birthday! I can hardly believe it – I remember being amazed when he turned 7 months old, and now here we are with this big kid running around our house.

A few weeks ago, I got an idea to make him a scrapbook for his birthday. The plan was to fill it with positive words that describe him and would build up his self-image, which can often be very negative. He loves the alphabet, so I decided to make it go in alphabetical order. I used bright colors for the backgrounds and put them in rainbow order, which is also a must for him!

My friend Lisa and I got together last Friday night and actually put the entire thing together in a six-hour marathon scrapbooking session. I could never have done it without her help and expertise, and I am so amazed by the finished product that I had to share it with everyone.

Visit 5 Minutes for Mom for more Tackle It Tuesday. I’m also over at 5 Minutes for Special Needs today, talking about Teaching the Value of Money. Whether you have a child with special needs or not, we’d love to have you join in and share your ideas on this topic.

I didn’t actually tackle an area in my house this week; instead I am tackling my to-do list!

Last week I joined in on To-Do Tuesday, a meme where you post your to-do list for the week, link up to the main post at Crazy Adventures in Parenting and then cross off or check off the items as you complete them.

It has felt so good to go in and check off the items as I got them done. I didn’t hit 100% but think I did pretty well; you can see how far I got on last week’s post. Of course, between focusing on my list and all the other stuff that comes up, I didn’t get to do much blogging!

Anyway, here’s my list for this week.

My To Do List:

Add school communication form notes to spreadsheet.

Do dishes at least every other day. (I’m making this one a bit less stringent as I didn’t do so well last week.)

Make Michael’s birthday scrapbook.

Buy snacks to take to soccer on Sunday.

Figure out why blog comments look strange in IE and find a solution. Update: Had to deactivate the plugin that lets people edit their comments. I’ve had very few people use that feature, so I think it’s better this way.

Write book review that was on last week’s to-do list. Update: Still not done – this is why I no longer say yes to any review opportunities!

Write Try This Tuesday for next week.

Email team at school regarding SLP progress report and new goal for OT. (Amended: waiting to discuss goal closer to new IEP)

Do taxes. Update: Too busy with birthday stuff. Plan to get to that this weekend!

Hopefully, I will get them all done this week! For more Tackle It Tuesday, visit 5 Minutes for Mom and for more To-Do Tuesday, visit Crazy Adventures in Parenting.

I have been planning to start working on the amount of clutter in my house and join in on Tackle It Tuesday at 5 Minutes for Mom for a while now. Since today is the day for What’s On Your Nightstand? over at 5 Minutes for Books, I thought there would be no better way to get started tackling than to clear off my nightstand!

Now I know some of you are saying, “That doesn’t look too bad; at least everything is neatly piled up.” But all of those books have been read, many of them several months ago, so it just needed to be dealt with!

Well, in just 15 minutes, I was able to:

• Put the library books in my bag ready to be taken back and exchanged for new ones.
• Separate the rest into keep, return to the person I borrowed them from, and pass on to someone else. The books to keep were put onto the bookshelf, and the others placed by the front door to go out.
• File the papers and catalogs from the last autism conference I went to, empty the gift bag of Christmas stocking stuffers into the right places in the closet, and give everything a good dusting and vacuum.

And, voila, a beautiful clean nightstand, with my Bible and journal easily accessible and a space all ready for the next round of books to be read!

And for a bonus, I found the book I was supposed to write a review about last month and had completely forgotten about.

So, what are you reading or tackling today?