Thrive As You

Here's the deal. I've been invited to speak at a group in Nashville in May about blogging. I know, right? So between now and May I need to BEEF UP my follower numbers so that I can feel actually WORTHY of speaking at this thing. Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo............... HELP ME! Please! Tell FIVE FRIENDS about my blog. And get a FREE present from me!!!!!! And then tell your five friends to tell five friends and THEY will all get a present from me. PRESENTS ARE AWESOME!!!!!!!! "Following" means this: You click the handy dandy button to the left, plug in your email or your google ID or whatever it is you use and then you are someone who publicly says, "Yes I read this blog" and it in turn boosts my confidence and makes me feel good about myself. What? The first word of the title of this post is SHAMELESS. I ain't proud!!!!! So here's how this works. For the nex t FIVE DAYS, ending February 3, 2011 at ...

Continuing on my Eat, Pray, Love madness... I watched the movie again last week. I know, I know everyone reads the book (any book in fact) and the movie is never as good. I'll just say that Eat, Pray, Love the movie was different from the book and leave it at that. OK I can't leave it at that. I just can't stop thinking, "I'm watching Julia Roberts!" because she's just THAT BIG of a star that I find it hard to look past. Not sure if that makes sense. Because when I watch Tom Hanks I see the character he's playing so maybe I'm really speaking more on the acting ability of Julia. Not sure. But I digress. As usual. I saw the movie first in the theater and there was a quote which was NOT in the book that hit me like a TON OF BRICKS. Literally. As in, for the REST of the movie I was trying to sit there and come up with the EXACT QUOTE because I wanted to keep it with me. I lost it. So I googled it. Nope. Couldn't find it. Even poste...

I can't believe it. I moved my blog. I mean... who DOES that? I guess me. And here's why. I was discussing in my last post that sometimes it's hard for me to write. And I realized after much thought (really this has been swirling around in my brain for months) that while I have A LOT to say about autism... it's not ALL I have to say. And yet I find that when the title of my blog is, "April walks with autism," well then by golly, I better be talking about autism. And make NO MISTAKE. I will never, EVER stop talking about autism. But for those of you who have met me... you know I have so much more to say. So here starts a new relationship with my blog. One in which I will.... open some new doors. It was easy for me to figure out the new name of my blog. Let me give you a tiny bit of background. Earlier this year, I reluctantly joined the Eat, Pray, Love craze. I say reluctantly because I picked up the book several times throughout the course of a y...

I haven't written since September 24. "Dear Diary, I haven't written since September 24...." ha ha ha sometimes writing a blog is like confession. A few days ago, a friend paid me a ridiculously high compliment. She said I was a great writer and that my writing touched lives. I'm going to be honest about one thing. I don't take compliments well. I can hear my friend Michelle laughing. Because I don't take compliments period. But, that conversation is for my therapist. Let's just say -- I was honored but not sure if I totally believe her. Either way, she told me to write a book. Well I don't know about all of that because truth be told I can barely keep up with my blog! September! What's wrong with me people? I told my friend that sometimes it's harder to write when there's an "expectation" there. When you know people are out there kinda waiting for you to write something "life changing." Ok, maybe not ...

It's all about perspective people. I had a crappy day today. No other way to say it. It was pure crap. Anything that could have gone wrong, did. It just did. None of these things amounted to HUGE deals but man did they make my day.... suck . Some days are just like that, right? We've all been there. Truth is, I've had a rough couple of weeks. OK months. I won't bore you all to tears with the whys and the hows and the details and the drama but suffice it to say, in the last few months I've loved, I've lost, I've laughed, I've cried, I've cried some more and then when I was all done crying, I found a way to release a few more tears. There have been days when getting out of bed was about the best I could muster. There's been even more days when putting on "the show" was almost more than I could bear. I'm calling it a mid-life crisis and we'll leave it at that. But it's allllllllllllllllllll about perspective. EVE...

I post a lot about autism. This blog, is called, "April Walks with Autism" after all. But really what I try to talk about is "special needs." "Differently abled." "Not normal." But today we will broach that small line under the title of my blog that reads, "and a few other things too." Today I write about... the GIFTED child. Yep, I got me one of those, too. But wait? Doesn't that fall into the category of "special needs?" "Differently abled? "Not normal?" I mean Luke is autistic and he has an IEP. Jared is gifted and he has an IEP. So I think it's time we talked about it. It's interesting. I meet a lot of parents with autistic kids that are sort of embarrassed to talk about their child's autism. Almost like there's this badge of shame in saying that your kid may be less than "whole" somehow. I'm the mom with a puzzle piece tattoo on her a$$ so what does that te...

I'll admit, most of my life I've been somewhat of an entertainment junkie. And by somewhat, I mean........ totally. But in recent years, my priorities have shifted quite a bit and I can't even remember the last year I watched the Emmy's. I mean, who has time to WATCH television let alone watch a show that celebrates the accomplishments of said media? Not me. But not this year. Oh no. I was GLUED. How many years in the past have we all watched the "documentary of the moment" walk on stage and scoop up their prizes? In years past we've seen made for TV movies ranging from war to depression to religion to politics to disease and everything in between. And it's been great. I'm really happy for all of the winners (hits FF button on the DVR remote). But this year, I cared. A lot. Because this year, I was up for an Emmy. Luke was up for an Emmy. Anyone who has been touched by autism (and there's a lot of us) was up for an Emmy. It was OUR...