A good way to practice your pumpkin carving before actually doing it:

http://www.cubpack81.com/images/carve_pumpkin.swf

This is my third week of subbing as a classroom aide in the developmental preschool at Hansen Elementary. I'm enjoying it very much, and if they haven't found someone permanent by the end of my six-week stint, I may agree to continue on until they do (I don't know how hard they're looking ( Read more... )

I spent the weekend up in Seattle at Paul's condo while attending an autism conference at the SeaTac Hilton. It felt strange being away from Jimmy for all those days (I was gone from Thursday afternoon through Sunday afternoon). But the conference was very informative and inspirational - it was something called "Defeat Autism Now!" or "DAN!" ( Read more... )

Most of you have probably already seen or heard this bit that Keith Olbermanns did at Ground Zero on Monday. I was impressed, so I thought I'd post a link nonetheless: Leave a comment  1 

For those of you who said you were interested, here is Jimmy's horse show information ( Read more... )

We just came from a birthday party for the daughter of one of my close friends. The little girl is basically the same age as Jimmy - she was turning 5 today - but she doesn't have autism. Jimmy and she have known each other since they were infants less than a year old ( Read more... )

This past Saturday, Parent to Parent of Thurston County had its annual picnic at Tumwater Historical Park. I am on the board of Parent to Parent - they are an agency who serves families with disabled or medically fragile children in Thurston County. For many of these types of children, a day at the park that most kids take for granted is a rare, ( Read more... )

1) Paul bought a condo on Capital Hill, so no more renting M-F while he's up there working. His entire condo is the size of our living room here ( Read more... )

There has been some recent controversy in our school district surrounding the use of the "safety spaces" in the all-autistic classrooms (there is one in Jimmy's preschool classroom, for example). Here is a link to a story the Olympian did about this issue last week ( Read more... )

Here is Part 6 of the Olympia "Pox" series ( Read more... )