How are YOU all doing?

[Guest guest]

Hi everybody,My name is Anoush (a nick name my son gave me and I take ’s “how are you all doing” to join in. First, thank you for starting this list (my thanks are long overdue) and all of you who actively contribute. I have been ‘reading only’ and I am VERY grateful for your exchanges. 

I am 60, live in the Middle East, married for 36 years, two sons. With the awareness of Aspergers syndrome when searching why our eldest son had challenges, I realized my husband and son have a lot in common.  It has been a very long journey.  I have not posted for various reasons, one of them simply out of lack of time, being a full time peace keeper, trying to balance everybody’s needs and my own and taking things one day at the time (sometimes 1 hour

After MANY years of puzzlement and trial and error, the mourning, working on adjusting expectations etc, etc., I have reached a period of mental calmness (oh, head in the blender etc?….done that, been there and still, from time to time) There are good and bad days, good and bad hours.

My philosophy is: the brain is the most powerful tool. If you don’t make it work ‘for you’, it automatically works against you. This philosophy is working for me. The introduction is short. It would take a book to tell the story of our life I don’t know yet how I can or will contribute to this list but I am very happy to know you. Your joys, pains, rants and other information have reached and touched me and I am grateful to belong to this family.

Greetings,Anoush

[Guest guest]

Anoush:

How wonderful to hear from mothers around

the globe. Thank you! Not feeling alone is why I asked to join this group –

it gives me great comfort to know that others feel the same as I.

Hadassah

[Guest guest]

Hi and all,

Here life has become excessively busy. My kids are all old enough for activities now so we are running non-stop... at least that is what it feels like to me. I'm getting the urge to be a hermit on the top of a mountain somewhere... LOL

My oldest is still in karate and doing well. She is also learning horse training and riding. She wants to learn how to train horses herself so I asked the riding lessons lady who also trains horses if she would be willing to teach her. I think it will be really good for my daughter to learn, maybe more so just working with this lady as she is an incredible woman. I have been looking and looking for a way for my oldest to get more lessons or input in her drawing because she is very good. She's gone beyond where I am able to help her with technique and such. I love this... I was talking to a friend and found out she is a certified art teacher! Yay! She is willing to critique my daughter's drawings and give her pointers. Then just a couple days after that I found that the lady who does the riding/training lessons also paints and draws so now my daughter will have 2 people who can give advice/help. All three of my kids are getting voice lessons as well.

My middle daughter is going to riding lessons 2 days a week. Same teacher. Her teacher says she is a natural rider and that there are things you cannot teach that daughter 2 does naturally. Riding has been so good for her as she tends to be a meek and mild let people walk all over you kind of person so this has given her confidence. I see her standing up for herself a lot more, which creates more fights here at home but it's much better for her! Actually better for her bossy sisters too! LOL She is also in 4-H, they are learning about electricity/energy/motion this year and loving it. Last week they built their own flashlights. She is a builder person and this summer she and her dad built on a tree fort together, she really loved that. She really has a technical mind.

My youngest has shown an aptitude for music. She's been in piano lessons for about half a year now and really loves it. It's funny because she's my out of the box don't give me too many rules kid but she loves her teacher who is a really super strict rigid teacher... go figure. It only applies to music though. Anything else and she's bouncing around like a rubber ball but when it comes to music she's totally focused. Amazing to me. She also drives her sisters nuts constantly listening to classical music and wandering around singing what I can only call opera that she makes up herself words and all. Since the music I have seen a marked improvement in her school work, esp her ability to read and write. Interesting that. Youngest d is also in riding lessons and the same 4-H group as her older sister.

School started out with a big Pfffffftttt this year! LOL I thought I was so clever and had everything all planned out so well, patting myself on the back... HA. That was a joke, we have been readjusting things since it started. I think it is finally reaching a leveling out period. The kids just weren't where I thought they were. But that's fine, we figured it out... Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing my oldest who typically has disliked school sitting at a microscope late into the afternoon/early evening checking out all the critters in pond water. We are also working on helping her start her own business. She is convinced she would fail at it but it's what she really wants to do so I told her "Let's do it NOW then it won't matter if you fail because we are still taking care of you." So she's getting pretty excited about that and we are just working it into her schoolwork which is much more motivating to her as she is not a book learning kind of person.

I have just been busy, busy running around to all these things and teaching school. I consider it a good day if I get some house work done. Yesterday I was able to work on my fish aquariums a little, which was nice. Hubby got the top off the tall one so I will be able to reach in to rearrange the 'furniture' and rebury the air hose which has been needing done for months. The other day at the horse riding ranch I got the chance to ride a horse for the first time in a long time and that was fun. I rode with my daughter and her teacher.

Hubby's work has been slowing down again, which is to be expected in the winter. We just hope it doesn't grind to a complete halt like last winter. We are still paying off a loan from then because our builder has never paid up HIS debt. Bah.

In a couple weeks the guy who wrote 'The Horse Boy' is going to be at the Ranch where we get our lessons. He's going to be doing book signing and show a video. I am hoping I will have the time to go.

Well this is probably way more than anyone wanted to know about my life. LOL

Jennie AS

[Guest guest]

** See below....

>

> Hi and all,

** Hiya Jennie....

>

> Here life has become excessively busy. My kids are all old enough for

activities now so we are running non-stop... at least that is what it feels like

to me. I'm getting the urge to be a hermit on the top of a mountain somewhere...

LOL

** I was getting ready to go into hermit mode the past couple of days. Nothing

is more important than my health (since I don't have kids), so I'm not afraid of

walking away from any position/office that I hold, be it volunteer work, etc.

I've learned that saying " no " does not make me feel guilty in the least bit. At

least, I don't feel the ego trip I did earlier in my life when I thought having

a title meant something.

> My oldest is still in karate and doing well. She is also learning horse

training and riding. She wants to learn how to train horses herself so I asked

the riding lessons lady who also trains horses if she would be willing to teach

her. I think it will be really good for my daughter to learn, maybe more so just

working with this lady as she is an incredible woman. I have been looking and

looking for a way for my oldest to get more lessons or input in her drawing

because she is very good. She's gone beyond where I am able to help her with

technique and such. I love this... I was talking to a friend and found out she

is a certified art teacher! Yay! She is willing to critique my daughter's

drawings and give her pointers. Then just a couple days after that I found that

the lady who does the riding/training lessons also paints and draws so now my

daughter will have 2 people who can give advice/help. All three of my kids are

getting voice lessons as well.

** Congrats to your oldest. Sounds like she's going to get a lot of

help/mentoring perhaps?

> My middle daughter is going to riding lessons 2 days a week. Same teacher. Her

teacher says she is a natural rider and that there are things you cannot teach

that daughter 2 does naturally. Riding has been so good for her as she tends to

be a meek and mild let people walk all over you kind of person so this has given

her confidence. I see her standing up for herself a lot more, which creates more

fights here at home but it's much better for her! Actually better for her bossy

sisters too! LOL She is also in 4-H, they are learning about

electricity/energy/motion this year and loving it. Last week they built their

own flashlights. She is a builder person and this summer she and her dad built

on a tree fort together, she really loved that. She really has a technical mind.

** She might want to consider a technical career down the road. I work as an

estimator for a hardware distributor (middleman between vendors/suppliers and

general contractors). Enjoy what I do, and the job seems to work well for me.

It's the kind of job where you work by yourself a lot, although working on teams

is common as well - especially where it pertains to project management.

Stressful for me, when the time is near for submitting project bids to gen

contractors and I'm waiting for everyone else to get their parts done. Then

again, I've got a very high math aptitude. Also, it's the type of job where I'm

always learning something new every day, somedays - a few new things.

> My youngest has shown an aptitude for music. She's been in piano lessons for

about half a year now and really loves it. It's funny because she's my out of

the box don't give me too many rules kid but she loves her teacher who is a

really super strict rigid teacher... go figure. It only applies to music though.

Anything else and she's bouncing around like a rubber ball but when it comes to

music she's totally focused. Amazing to me. She also drives her sisters nuts

constantly listening to classical music and wandering around singing what I can

only call opera that she makes up herself words and all. Since the music I have

seen a marked improvement in her school work, esp her ability to read and write.

Interesting that. Youngest d is also in riding lessons and the same 4-H group as

her older sister.

** How nice for your youngest, especially with classical music. My mom played

nothing but easy listening and classical music when I was in her womb. I'm more

well rounded in terms of the kind of music I listen to and such. However,

classical music does play an influence in my life. Should she go to college one

day, she should ace her music history class without any questions. My music

history final involved listening to ten different music compositions by ten

different composers. I was the first one done out of what seemed to be several

hundred students in the class. Just seconds after the last piece was played, I

stood up and turned in my exam to the proctor. As soon as the back room doors

shut behind me, I laughed my butt off. Couldn't believe the final was that

easy. Then again, if I hadn't grown up listening to classical music, who knows

how I would have done in that class. LOL.

> Hubby's work has been slowing down again, which is to be expected in the

winter. We just hope it doesn't grind to a complete halt like last winter. We

are still paying off a loan from then because our builder has never paid up HIS

debt. Bah.

** Yeah, bah humbug. That's kinda like these gc's (gen contractors), who end up

buying material from my company and then don't have the funds to pay us because

they went for broke. Hope that things get better for y'all.

> In a couple weeks the guy who wrote 'The Horse Boy' is going to be at the

Ranch where we get our lessons. He's going to be doing book signing and show a

video. I am hoping I will have the time to go.

** Awesome. Best wishes to you if you do go.

> Well this is probably way more than anyone wanted to know about my life. LOL

>

> Jennie AS

>

** Nawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. I've heard much worse than that.. like about

the one time I heard about this reality star and such.. never mind, do they live

in reality anyway?