He did it, because I did it. Blake wrote me an app for my least favorite math project - calculating what that sale price really means. I’m always complaining about it and told him a few months ago he should write me an app that does it for me. Well, he has and it’s awesome!

Check out http://bit.ly/iSalePrice. Just type in the cost of the item and select the percentage off tag and the app will show you what the price is. To quote Ferris, “It is most awesome. I highly recommend it.”

The only one in our house more excited about it than me is our teenage daughter! Thanks Blake!

It’s been a emotional ride the past few weeks. I am SO exceptionally grateful that Blake and I have been blessed with the ability to be back home with our families right now. There’s been suffering and death from cancer, blessings and strain of new births on the way, and the continual decline of dad’s health in the mix. Reflection on the past 18 months reveals 5 funerals of close family who’ve passed and I suspect there are a few more on the horizon, coming up fast. In the words of one of the greatest men I’ve been privileged to know, “…everybody faces problems in their life. I don’t think it matters what the problem is but how you meet it that counts.”

My Uncle Bill said those words. And they were more than words, they were a guiding principle in his life. I can’t help but take a moment to pay tribute to this man. A man who linked me to a generation I didn’t have the chance to know personally, a man who did the same for my children - a man who walked a straight path every day of his life. This is on of my favorite pictures of him with my daughter a decade ago:

Bill held his ground and standards in adversity. Even when being held down by army comrades in an effort to force liquor down his throat, he fought for what he believed in. It paid off. People respected him and he influenced many for good. He was a man you could count on, a good neighbor and loyal friend. Last week my mom told me this story. I want it recorded for myself, so I’m putting it here.

“I’d come home from Preston for the weekend. Kayleen was just a little girl and Holly a baby. Bill was driving mom, me and my two girls over to Kay’s in his pickup. As we passed Gale Reed’s place, we observed a situation. The scene was a low spot of ground, below the barn where all the drainage went. It was a fair sized pond of mire. We could see cars off to the side of the road and Bill slowed down and stopped. There we saw a fellow that had driven his car into the mire pond and was out sloshing around in it covered from head to toe. He wasn’t sober and he was a spectacle, with many spectators looking on. But not Bill. Bill went to the man’s side. The poor old fellow had lost his hat, and reached down to grab it and replaced it on his head; the contents of the mire streaming down his face. Bill put his arm around him, brought him back to the pickup, wrapped him in a tarp and slowly drove him home. When we got there, Bill told us he was sorry to inconvenience us, but that he would go in and get him cleaned up and start a fire and make sure he was okay. When he returned, he said how sorry he felt for the man who’d explained he’d just gotten his taxes done and it was worse than he’d been prepared for. I’ve never forgotten the lesson of love, compassion and pure charity Bill had for that man. That was who Bill was.”

Uncle Bill passed away on Sunday, March 4th. The world was a better place for his being here. A man of many talents and one who dearly loved horses, his last ride was most fitting with his team of horses and in the wagon he made, with his two brothers riding alongside the driver and the horse without a rider trailing behind:

I was lucky enough to help come up with a fitting arrangement to honor him. My sister in law and I tossed around ideas, settling on this:

Sadly, his sweet wife, who endured a scrape with death last summer of cancer, has but a short time left herself. She said she’d come back to help him through his exit and final days of suffering, now her mission is complete. Her nurse told mom yesterday she thinks it won’t be long. She deserves to be with her husband, but our hearts ache for the loss of two beloved family members so close together.

As I stood next to dad at the burial service of Bill, tears streaming down my face as I listened to the playing of “Taps” on the trumpet, my dad in his wheelchair at my side looked up and said, “I think I might be next in line.” I kissed him on the head and said, “Yes, I think you might.”

Life is full of challenges. The wise words of my uncle echo in my head, “I guess I have had my share of problems, but I figure everybody faces problems in their life. I don’t think it matters what the problem is but how you meet it that counts.”

Every mom appreciates an easy activity. Today’s hit was making chocolate play dough.

Chocolate Play Dough Recipe

1 1/2 C Flour
1/2 C Cocoa
1/2 C Salt
2 tsp Cream of tarter
1 1/2 T Vegetable Oil
1 C boiling water

1. Mix the dry ingredients together
2. Add oil and water
3. Mix together
4. Knead smooth on a flat surface dusted with flour
5. Play!

Warning: if your children are a little older brace yourself for endless jokes and designs about poop! Pretty soon they moved into mustaches and eventually chocolate kisses, cupcakes and pretzels. The dough is really soft, smooth and smells great. While it won’t hurt your child to eat, they’ll learn on their own pretty quick that it doesn’t taste the way it smells.

Do you ever have one of those days when you spend a lot of time thinking about all the things you wish you were doing, had gotten done or were finishing? Today is that day for me. I feel like I need to find some focus again.

I lay in bed last night thinking about my blog, among other things. I’ve spent some time reviewing posts in years past and I find myself both grateful for the things I recorded and disappointed in the way I’ve been far less diligent in recent years. It seems like there are so many ways to spend time and record things today it’s hard to know where to spend your time and energies, or at least how to more efficiently divide them on the many options.

A few years ago, I started a private blog for my siblings and parents. The purpose was to keep in touch with each other and know what’s going on in our lives as well as to print a book each year for a gift to our parents. It’s been a wonderful thing, although I’ll be the first to admit it’s much harder to get contributions (including my own) than I’d ever guessed. I wonder why it is that good things are so hard to make time for?

At any rate, I’ve spent a lot of time this morning thinking on the things that inspire me; the things that light a fire under me; the things I want to do. I’m trying to find my focus again. I need to take more pictures, remember to post more and keep that focus of making my life a masterpiece in my sights.

I just sat down at my computer. It’s the first time today and I’d just spent an hour shoveling snow. As I settle in to enjoy a few minutes of “me” time I find my 9 year old son at my side saying, “Mom can we make some of those cookies?”

How do they know? I’m not just talking about pinpointing possibly the least convenient moment, I’m talking about the little boost you didn’t know you needed when you take those precious moments to do something with your child.

So the lesson for the day is that love really is spelled T-I-M-E. And if you’re up for a great recipe, that’s included too!

These are the best peanut butter kisses cookies!

1/2 C (1 stick) Butter
1 C Sugar
1 Egg
1/2 tsp Vanilla
1/2 tsp Salt
1 tsp Baking Powder
2 C Flour
1/2 C Peanut Butter
3 Dozen Unwrapped Hershey Kisses

Roll into 1 1/2″ balls and coat with sugar. Press thumb imprint, bake 5 minutes at 375 degrees. Remove from oven, gently press hershey kiss into the impression. Return to the oven and bake 3 more minutes.

It’s been quite a while since I blogged anything about ADHD. As I looked over past blog posts, I realize I’ve taken a little vacation from learning and helping my daughter with it. I didn’t mean to, it just became easy to get complacent and right now I feel a bit chastened. Don’t get me wrong, I never forget it’s there. We deal with it every day as I struggle to find effective and successful communication with my teen daughter. But as she’s grown and made such amazing strides compensating on her own for the struggles, I’ve allowed myself to take a backseat. I haven’t been reading, learning and keeping up with information on it and I know how valuable that is. Today I just feel like I owe that kiddo a shout out. She is amazing and she can (and does) do hard things every single day!

In the past 16 months we’ve lived in three states, moved two and half times and lived in 4 different homes. That’s a boatload of new neighbors, schools, church friends and social experiences. It’s a lot of change to digest in a short time. In fact, it makes my head spin to see it written out like this! Top it all off with moving headlong into teen years and it’s no wonder I’m a bit dazed.

As a parent, it’s hard to know when and how to share important information about your kids. Everyone knows something about their children that others don’t. Sometimes this information is big, sometimes it’s small but either way it’s a balancing act for the parent to identify the right times/situations in which to share these nuggets of wisdom. You constantly ask yourself if sharing will result in greater good, or make things worse. For example, when my daughter began Kindergarten I made sure the teacher was aware of her adoption status. This wasn’t because I wanted to call attention to her being adopted, in fact quite the opposite as I wanted to avoid any awkwardness about it. I felt the teacher needed to know before her upcoming family unit that my daughter’s details about birth and inherited genetic traits would be different and potentially awkward. Moreover, at that age she herself was still developing an understanding and I needed to help make sure it was positive. It was the right time to share this information, but it is still deeply personal and can carry unexpected consequences good and bad; it has to be held carefully. Her ADHD is much like this and because of those unknown and potentially unexpected consequences, I tend to err on the side of sharing too little especially as she gets older and gains more independence. I also worry that sharing can result in preconceived ideas or judgements that could be more harmful than helpful. Most days I’m a drowning puppy just struggling to keep my head above water. This is when some of my friends would say they put a dollar in the jar for future counseling and just move on. You do the best you can at any given time with what you have, but you always worry that it’s not enough or too much.

Well, last week my daughter (now 14) had a run-in with a fellow classmate. I found myself sitting in a room with the teachers, my daughter, the other party and that child’s parent discussing the mishap and trying to resolve any unkind feelings. As soon as I understood the dynamics involved, it was obvious why there had been some fireworks. Unfortunately, I was the only one in the room who could see with that clarity because I was the only one who understood key information about my daughter’s ADHD. I found myself wishing I’d been able to share my knowledge before the confrontation. With my daughter’s permission, I was able to share it after with the teacher. While it ended on a positive note, I couldn’t help but question if I’d dropped the ball in the balancing act of sharing information which would have altered the conflict resolution scenario.

Here’s the reality. My daughter has ADHD. She will always have it. It won’t magically go away as she gets older. But as she continues to mature and develop she can learn to balance and counter its detriments and live a functional and happy life. The strides she’s made in the past two years are evidence of this. But it’s still hard and I often forget how hard. In reviewing past articles I’ve written on it I came across this list on communication and ADHD and immediately felt myself sink in my chair for how much I’ve forgotten. Four years ago I found this checklist and shared thoughts on it. The intent is for the person with ADHD to circle and rate which of the items in the list they either acknowledge themselves or have been told by others they struggle with. Constant review of the list can help them see if they’re improving. Where I felt short was the constant review because in four years the issues have shifted for my daughter a great deal.

Ability to identify and express your feelings
Check-repeat what you heard and ask if you heard it right
Join a conversation without disruption
Stay on track in a conversation
Identify and reflect feelings of others
Actively let others know you are following the conversation
Miss pieces of information-”blinks”
Ability to keep a conversation going
Voice too loud or too soft
Speak too quickly
Interrupt others
Too quiet-rarely speaking in conversations
Talk excessively
Order or boss others
Criticize-judge or make evaluative comments
Disregard or minimize statements of others

The reason I share this is an effort to help others understand what “hard” means for my daughter. Most of us have experience with several of the above issues at one point or another in our lives. But my daughter knows each item intimately and experiences all of them simultaneously, every single day. I can’t even imagine that. She doesn’t experience them because she’s not smart or doesn’t care, she experiences them because she has a medical condition that impedes her ability to communicate. She has no control over it happening, only learned responses in dealing with the results. Her condition, while not as visible as an eye astigmatism with corrective lenses, is every bit as real. In fact, the lack of visibility is harder on her because it feeds the lack of understanding and harsh judgements of those around her. I wish so much I could remember myself, as well as share with others how hard she works to keep relations good with everyone she knows. I wish the rest of us could have a little more compassion and understanding accepting her mistakes with it. If she can do hard things, so can we.

More of my thoughts on ADHD.

It’s 2012. Twelve years ago, many of the civilized world thought the world was going to end at the turn of the century. History books refer to the phenomenon as Y2K. This year we have a new wave of anxiety over the Mayan calendar ending on December 21, 2012. I suppose you could live your life as if you knew the end of the world were known. I just wonder if the results would be as positive as they could be if we all woke up every day and realized it was a new day. A new chance to start over. I let you in on a little secret, you don’t have to wait until the end of a year to recognize the power and energy of things made new.

Several years ago I read a book by Dr. Deepak Chopra, entitled Ageless Body, Timeless Mind. This passage took hold in me:

“In order to stay alive, your body must live on the wings of change. At this moment you are exhaling atoms of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen that just an instant before were locked up in solid matter…The skin replaces itself once a month, the stomach lining every five days, the liver every six weeks, and the skeleton every three months…By the end of this year, 98 percent of the atoms in your body will have been exchanged for new ones.”

That’s like getting a whole new body over and over again! How cool is that? If the physical body lives on change and is constantly renewing itself, what does that say for other elements of our lives? What a wonderful pattern to follow. It’s amazing what our perception of control and newness can do.

Last month I worked on my memorization skills. I’m a little ashamed to admit how rusty they were for lack of use. However, it was wonderful to realize that not only was I still most capable of memorizing, but that by committing uplifting literature to memory I felt not only enlightened I felt enfolded in the arms of motivational companions! I thank my darling husband for creating a new app to aid me in my efforts. Not only does his tool work, he’s got a great starting list of uplifting works to memoRISE! While the concept of memorizing isn’t new, reviving it in my personal life definitely qualifies as a renewing experience!

So the message for today is to think on one word: new.

It’s cold. It’s snowing. I miss the desert southwest when it’s like this. So I cope with a sunroom with mom’s plants to soothe me.

I can almost look beyond the white stuff outside.

Yesterday, I started sorting through some photos for a Christmas project. It was fun to reminisce.

I miss this little man:

And this little girl:

They grow too fast.