Hacker Widow

I broke down and went to the Exeter Brewfest with my hubby. I have to say it was really fun.

I know my hubby had a GREAT time…lol

Loved this guys beer hat!!

One of my hubbies favorite beers.

So many to choose from.

Even our wonderful neighbor Barbara Got into the act. LOVE HER!!

Lots of fun!! Hubby found a new second place favorite..

But the most important thing of the day…

ENJOY!!!

A couple weeks ago, we took a day trip to San Luis Obispo. This is one of our favorite places to hang out. On the way, we were amazed by the wildflowers that were bursting out everywhere.

These were in the hills right outside of Paso Robles. You can’t make out the purple, but the colors were soooo vibrant! Hard to resist the touristy trappings, so we pulled over and started snapping pictures.

Just amazing… Too bad it will all be brown in a few weeks.

We have a “cheat” meal every now and then at this great little place called Pita Kabob. They have some of the most wonderfully seasoned beef and chicken. My hubby and I will go in and split a combo plate. It used to contain: 1 skewer beef, 1 skewer chicken, rice pilaf, and hummus with pita bread…mmmm. Now it contains 1 skewer chicken, 1 skewer beef, salad, and hummus (no bread ) So, since the pleasure value has gone down slightly, I find I’m a little pickier. I decided to try a beef salad…needless to say, it was great.

But you notice the small pile above the salad? That’s my little pile of ” Ewww… get that OFF my salad!! Don’t let it touch!!” I really HATE tomato guts on my food! Come on… you know you do it too.~

It went like this…

“Look at all those things..”

“What? Where?”

“There..(points across the room) there and there, and Boom.”

“Uh, the chairs?”

“No, those.”(Points again)

“The ladies?”

“Yeah, over there. I had to help but its ok now.”

“O.K. Dad. Good job.”

“Yep. That one keeps staring at me so I have to do it back.”

“O.K. Dad. Do you want to go for a walk.”

“Yep.”

Then, outside…

“Yeah, I needed to get out of there. Boy, it’s cold.”

“Do you want to go in?”

“Yeah, that would be the way to do it.”

“O.K. let’s go in”

We go in and sit at the dining table.

“How’s everyone?”

“Great Dad.”

“Good…want to go for a walk outside?”

“It’s kind of chilly..”

“Let’s go.”

“O.K.”

Back outside.

“That how I like it.”

“How Dad?”

“With the thing over there and going to go out and help them.”

“O.K. Dad.”

“Brrr…. kind of cold. Want to go in? Ooops, I need to drop something.”

K, I have to admit, that stumped me.

“Do you need to use the restroom??”

“Yep.”

“Uh, ok Dad.”

We walked back in.

I went to visit my Dad today. He lives in an Assisted Living Facility’s Alzheimer’s unit.He’s had quite a lot of funny experienced in there, I’ll write more on those later. Today was not a funny day. Today was not a good day. Today was a day when he was incoherent, tired, and restless. Today was a day I watched him walk around his room for 10 minutes trying to remember how to put on the pair of sweatpants that he had in his hand. He’d decided that he wanted to get more comfortable and change out of his slacks. After rounding up his sweat pants, (they are usually in a variety of odd places, like the bathroom storage cabinet or at the top of the entry closet.) he just kept walking around the room. I assumed he was looking for a shirt to wear. He then stated he wanted to change into different pants. I reminded him that they were in his hands, and that all he needed to do was go into the bathroom and change. He then unbuttoned his pants and pulled them down enough to show me his three shirts that he was wearing. I suggested that he’d probably be more comfortable if he took a couple off. He did so. I just don’t get it. We can put a man on the moon. We can take picture of the sun. We can take in depth readings from some of the deepest depths of the oceans, so WHY can’t we figure out how to curb this horrible disease??? A disease that slowly strips a person of their wit, their charm, their compassion, their love, their humor, their dreams, their joy, their family and finally their hope. I can tell you first hand it is one of the most painful experiences I’ve had to deal with. Watching this horrifying disease grow stronger and stronger and seeing my Father become less and less.

This activity is very simple. The autistic girl I am with, has very weak fine motor skills. So we work ALOT on handwriting. I try to get her to practice 4- 5 times throughout  the day. This is one of the things we have her do. First, I got some large graph paper.

Next, I highlighted the words she’s currently practicing. We started with her name. Once she mastered that, we moved on to simple words.

Outlining the block the word is in, helps give a boundary to the child. In this case, we are trying to teach proper proportion along with spelling.

You can highlight in different colors. It really doesn’t matter to some children. You can stop there, and let the child use a pencil to trace. You can also laminate and bind the pages creating a reusable book. The idea being to gradually wean the child off of the highlighting. Enjoy!!

After the fun of making goodies and decorating eggs we will continue on to the main event…DINNER!! Can you tell we’re dieting?? LOL. Anyway, we were in for a major treat this year. Our oldest daughter can up during her spring break and wanted to show off her culinary talent.

See that intense look? She’s raring to go!

She started by preparing dessert first since it had to sit.

MMmmm.. fresh berries.

Her creation… Mixed Berry Trifle with a lemon curd sauce. Yep it tasted THAT good  ;0)

Next the prepping of the potatoes and asparagus.

Asparagus tossed with EVOO, garlic cloves and parmesan.

Potatoes tossed in EVOO, and garlic cloves..

Then, she prepared a Bourbon and brown sugar glaze for…..

THE HAM!!!!! MMMmmmmmmm

It was such an amazing dinner. I am so proud of her and her accomplishments! We’ll have to have a coming home party so other can taste her wonderful cooking.

This is the second installment of center activites created to help children in the mainstream classroom. These folders are for categorizing.

I found this picture simply by browsing around the internet. There are some great sites out there. Don’t give up… I cut out the bear, made a “dirty clothes hamper” by folding over card stock and stapling up each side. I glued the bear onto a file folder and laminated it. I then attached the hamper with velcro and placed pieces of velcro on the bear.

Next, I down loaded several different outfits, cut them out and laminated.

I then attached velcro to the back of the pieces of clothes. Then let the child go! You can ask who would wear certain items, i.e. clown or doctor. You can also make it as simple as “Where are the Clown’s pants?” “Which shirt goes with it?” Sky’s the limit.

I have even used a paper doll set I found.

Same idea with the clothes.

Have fun with it!! :0)

We were blessed by having both children home for Spring Break this year. Our oldest came home from her culinary school. She wanted to cook Easter dinner for us. (Who am I to complain??? ;0) Anyway, I decided to pick up an egg coloring kit to see if the girls felt like doing it. They haven’t colored eggs in years. I was pleasantly surprised by the reaction. They got extremely excited. My kids are BIG on tradition, and have been missing it. Who knew? So they started getting it ready, along with making their rice krispie chocolate dipped eggs…Mmmmm

Not long after they started on the rice krispies, I hear them complaining about how sticky they are. “Moommm, how do you keep them from sticking??!?!”

This is where I told them they forgot to spray Pam on their hands. Lol

So they got back to work.

Taylor gets that look from her father. ( See previous posts)

Then on to coloring eggs…

Look at that concentration!! Lol

Uhh…yeah. Anyone else’s 19 year old act like this??? She’s taken pictures with her tongue out since birth. *sigh*

But finally…DONE

Ahhh, our beauties.

On to Easter fun and dinner…NEXT post. Lol

My youngest daughter went out to help her daddy trim up the trees in the front yard.

ok…maybe it WAS more of an advisory position  :0)

Anyway, they were trying to figure out how high to trim the trees.

In doing this, they, inadvertently left a branch in the road.

Then there was a boy. A boy on a bike. A boy on a bike, who only had eyes for my beautiful daughter.  My daughter but NOT the branch in the road.  Well… you can see where this is going…

I was called outside by the sound of hysterical laughing.

Nooo… it wasn’t Jasper. He was just a witness. Both my husband and my daughter thought it was extremely funny. But the laughter really didn’t start until the boy yelled “S*&T!!!” at the last moment and dodged the branch. After telling me the story, my hubby went back to work,

He’s wearing his confused look once again.

It’s ok.

He wears it a lot…  ;0)