This has been a busy month, so I am very glad for a four-day weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving. Yesterday, Michael and I had a quiet day at home and enjoyed our version of a holiday feast. We are both picky eaters, so it was mostly beige foods. We enjoyed it though!
This morning, Michael had a manometry study to evaluate the motility of his esophagus. He has previously had a barium swallow and an upper endoscopy, both of which were normal. We are hoping that this test will give us some answers to his swallowing difficulties. The nurse who administered the test was great; she was very patient with him and explained everything that was happening very clearly. Michael had a bit of trouble with one small section of the test, but for the most part he did great. Actually, he did a lot better than I think I would have done!
Tomorrow I am going to a local puzzle competition. I am going as a spectator, partly because I enjoy watching people who can puzzle fast and partly because they are having a puzzle swap table. I am really hoping people bring some good puzzles to trade.
Speaking of puzzling, I just bought a new floor lamp for my living room that is a lot brighter than the one I had. It makes doing puzzles much easier and also helps me take better pictures of the finished puzzles. I am going to put the old floor lamp in Michael’s room since he only has a bedside lamp right now.
I did something a little different this year and bought an advent calendar for Michael. It is a Minecraft Lego advent calendar, and he seemed to really like it. I hope he will enjoy building each day’s item.
This is another catch-up post, but hopefully a bit more of a fun one. I’m not going to talk about work or health issues in this one.
In early November, Michael ran a short D&D campaign for me that he created based on Undertale and Delta Rune. It was actually a lot of fun, and I thought he did a great job writing it, drawing the maps, and running the campaign.
I tried a couple of new things in November as well. I had my first meeting on the planning committee for the 10th Annual Mother-to-Mother Luncheon. This year they are having it in three locations, one of which is Harrisburg. I volunteered to run the registration committee. I also attended a potluck and a support group meeting at a new organization called the Neurodiverse Network. I enjoyed the potluck, but the support group was a bit uncomfortable, especially when someone started saying how much they hate autism moms. I used to fit into that category and, although I have changed a lot of my views over time, I am still bouncing between being an autistic woman and the mother of an autistic adult. I haven’t interacted with them any further, and I doubt that I will.
In mid-November, our good friends Bill & Jenn came for a visit one evening. We had dinner and great conversation. Jenn even played puzzle chess with me and liked it enough that she wanted to play a second round!
For Thanksgiving, Michael was at his dad’s house, so I went to Renee’s for the day. Her boys were there as well as a couple of friends. Her boyfriend Chris cooked the meal, and it was fantastic. The brined turkey was so flavorful and my favorite sides were the sweet potato casserole with pecans and the sausage stuffing muffins. I took a 300-piece puzzle to do with whoever wanted to join in (Colorful Harvest, posted earlier this month).
On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Kim & I went to see the movie Wicked. I didn’t really know the story, although I had heard a couple of the songs from the musical before. I absolutely loved it! It was 2 hours 40 minutes, but felt much shorter than that. I can’t wait until part 2 comes out next year!
Here are a couple of pictures I wanted to share. One was taken in the front of my church while I was greeting last Sunday, and the other is a picture of my former dog Baxter with his new owner’s mother’s dog Hudson. I am so glad he is still doing well.
I finally decorated my apartment this week, after having the boxes sit in my living room for a week or so. I would like to get a bigger, fuller tree sometime, but this one will do for now.
This week has been a bit busier. On Tuesday, Suzanne came over. We ordered Panera and started a puzzle. On Wednesday, Renee took me to Gabriella Italian Restaurant for my birthday. We had a great time and some wonderful food. On Friday, Jessyca showed up at my place with a Christmas gift for me, a custom puzzle. I was so surprised and happy to see her again after several months of total silence from her. Today, Michael & I went to an open house at a center that our church is considering a move to. We would need to build a worship space to add to the existing building, but it does seem like a pretty good option for us. I’m looking forward to seeing if things work out for this.
I’ll sign off with a pic of my recent haircut. I’m not going to keep it this short, but I do kind of like how it looks.
Colorful Harvest is a 300-piece puzzle from Ceaco, and the artist is Tracy Flickinger. I have done several of her puzzles and really enjoy her style. The quality of this one was good, which was nice because Ceaco can be hit or miss.
I took this puzzle with me to Thanksgiving at Renee’s house. I thought the image was appropriate to the holiday and also though the smaller piece count would be good for the time we had available. Renee and I were about 75% done when our friend Mike showed up, and he joined us to finish the puzzle.
I liked this puzzle a lot and will definitely redo it sometime by myself to enjoy it even more.
Today was Thanksgiving Day, and it was a good one. I got up early to start the turkey. It was my first time cooking a turkey. We were given a full Thanksgiving dinner from Michael’s caseworker, so I decided to give it a try.
While the turkey was cooking, I got out a 500-piece puzzle called Cats In Quarantine from Exploding Kittens. The artist is David Kantrowitz. It was super fun. I loved the image and the quality. The pieces fit together well, and you could easily move small sections around. The only weird thing was that some of the colors on the included poster didn’t really match the puzzle.
I thought I would sit down and write an update as to what’s going on these days.
The holidays are going to be different this year. Normally, we get together with my husband’s family for Thanksgiving Day and also for Christmas Eve. But my father-in-law is still undergoing chemo and needs to be very careful to avoid catching anything, so we are not going to be getting together this year. My parents both live in Illinois, so we don’t usually see them at the holidays either.
My in-laws decided to splurge this year and got us a grill as an early Christmas present. It’s the same model they have, and it’s really nice. We have used it a couple of times already. Speaking of early Christmas presents, we have done a little shopping for ourselves as well. I got new drapes for the dining room and a replacement set of Little House books since my originals are in bad condition and I still enjoy re-reading the series from time to time. Joe got barbecue tools and a cover for the new grill. Michael has been updating his wish list on Amazon for any family that want to get him something.
Michael has been struggling a bit with the hybrid schedule his school is on this fall. His grades aren’t as good as they normally are because he has missed a few assignments or not read all the directions for the week when he is online. He has also been feeling a bit stressed/overwhelmed with things. His psychiatrist has increased one of his meds to help, and we are also back to biweekly sessions with his therapist. The autistic support teacher is also meeting with him over Zoom once a week to review his assignments and the directions for the week in his classes.
For his senior year, Michael is taking English, Chemistry, Financial Algebra, and four credits of Electronics Technology. He was originally going to take a couple of half-credit electives, but he doesn’t need them to graduate so he decided not to take them. The seniors have online school Monday – Wednesday and in person school Thursday and Friday. Thursdays are his academic classes, and since there are only three of them he gets out at 11am. Fridays he has his shop all day. The shop teacher has them working on individual projects for part of the day, and Michael is programming a video game for his project.
Work has been busy but not overwhelmingly so. We are still working towards our new computer system and are finalizing all the product data uploads now. We hope to be live before Thanksgiving. I think the timing is good, because we will have a few weeks during our typically slower time to get used to the new system. Then when things pick up in January, everyone should be pretty comfortable with it.
So that’s the news for now. Hope you are all doing well and staying healthy.
In So Many Words 