Adult Care Center

I posted a few weeks back how guilty I felt dropping John weekday mornings at his adult care center.  I am feeling much less guilty lately.

John seems pretty happy to be going there in the morning.  I just sign him in and he walks into the main room and hangs up his back pack.  The people there seem nice and very competent.

Quote Details: Sydney Smith: You must not think... - The Quotations Page

"You must not think me necessarily foolish because I am facetious, nor will I consider you necessarily wise because you are grave.
Sydney Smith"

New Toy

Now I can blog from anywhere.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sermon: Sense and Sensuality

I enjoyed the sermon today.  I ended up taking John alone to church today, so I was quite happy that he was as cooperative as he was and I was able to concentrate on the sermon.

One of the best lessons I learned about sensuality was from my son John.  When he was just four years old, we took a family vacation to Salt Lake City right after Christmas.  I don't think John had ever seen snow before, so he had to go and investigate.  To completely understand what snow was, John took off his coat and the rest of his clothes and dived right into a snow bank.  Something I don't think would have occurred to me.

Quote from Mother Teresa

I heard this quote from the sermon at church this morning, and I need to blog it so I don't forget it quite so soon.  I had never thought of taking the sacrament (communion) in quite these terms before.

As St. Paul says "I live no longer I but Christ in me". Christ works in me, Christ thinks in me. Christ looks through my eyes, Christ speaks through my words, Christ works with my hands, Christ walks with my feet, Christ loves with my heart. St. Paul's prayer was "I belong to Christ and nothing will separate me from the love of Christ." It was that oneness, oneness with God, oneness with the Master in the Holy Spirit.

Taken from Mother Teresa, Essential Writings 

Miss Manners on Nosy Friends

Great line from Miss Manners. I need to remember it.

"'You're so kind to worry about my private life. But I assure you that your worry is misplaced.'"

Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?

I totally relate...

Francois de La Rochefoucauld French author & moralist (1613 - 1680)

 

Those who can laugh without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving mad.

Norm Papernick

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating. Oscar Wilde

I hate the outdoors. To me the outdoors is where the car is - Will Durst

I am actually not quite that bad. But my idea now of roughing it is staying at a Holiday Inn.

"The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go to erase it - Glaser and Way"

War Room - Finger bitten off at healthcare rally

War Room - Salon.com: "It was one thing when protests over healthcare reform at town halls featured a lot of angry people yelling over each other. Not exactly a great way to conduct an important debate, of course, but nothing out of the ordinary, really -- and we do have that First Amendment thing, after all.

But when people's fingers are getting bitten off, maybe it's time to cool things down a little bit."

Quote - Think twice before you speak....

Think twice before you speak, and then you may be able to say something more insulting than if you spoke right out at once - Evan Esar

Monday stuff

Over the weekend, John's adult care was moved to a new location. I was dreading this since my drive time to work is going to increase quite a bit.

Today was the first day and it didn't go too badly. The good news is that traffic wasn't as horrible as I thought it was going to be once I got past the nasty bottleneck on the expressway. The new facilities for the adult care seem a lot nicer also, so that is good.

For the last 18 years or so, I have a nice easy commute to work generally on back roads. I live close enough that I often just drive home for lunch. I just hope no one tries to schedule me for an early meeting ever again at work though.

Guilt

Barbara is back to school, so I am dropping John off every morning at an adult day care (for lack of a better term, I am sure I will be corrected later.)

I have to say that I am feeling very guilty about this. On one hand, I know that I have to make a living and that it is an okay place for him to be, he is taken care of, entertained, fed, and they won't let him hurt himself. On the other hand, I don't think he belongs there. I get the impression that he is certainly brighter and more aware than most of the other clients.

One of the reasons we chose this particular facility was because it is close to our house and pretty much on my way to work and on the way home for Barbara. This will all change next week, they are moving to a place where both of us will have to fight traffic getting there and coming back.

I am not sure what are alternatives are at the moment.

When John was diagnosed 19 plus years ago, we decided to take him to a learning center in Irving Texas, which was on my way to work back then. As I recall, he was only there for a few hours a couple of times a week, but it was heartbreaking leaving him there, I could hear him cry all the way out to my car. He doesn't cry now, but it doesn't feel much better to me.

Such is life. I of course am grateful that we found this place through one of my co-workers. Maybe we will find something better.

Police: Baby spotted in parked car before his death

This is such an incredibly sad story. Dad forgets that there is a baby in the back of the car and leaves the car in the hot Texas heat.

Then someone thinks they see a baby locked in a car and then they go inside and tell the security people who can't find the car with the baby.

Lesson: Call 911 and wait by the car until someone shows up.

Why I always dress casually

No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit.

Sir Frederick G. Banting
Canadian physician & physiologist (1891 - 1941)

The Salt Lake Tribune: Disabled children need spiritual nurturing, LDS moms say

I already posted this on Facebook. I wanted to be able to reference the article later, so here it is on my blog also.

I personally have very bad memories of trying to take John to LDS services. If I kept him in the meetings, I got nasty looks, if I took him out in the hallways, I would get 'shushed.' It was easier for both of us when we started staying home and letting the other family members attend without us.

Though it could have been worse. Quote from the article:

Some parents of the disabled ask whether church is worth the struggle.

For Jeni Grossman, the answer was a definite "no."

About 25 years ago, Grossman and her husband joined the LDS Church in part because Mormon missionaries taught them that "those born with physical disabilities were once valiant spirits in the pre-[mortal] existence" and that the Mormon priesthood "has the sole authority on Earth to heal in the name of Jesus Christ."

The bishop promised them their son Zachary -- who had spina bifida that left him unable to walk or run -- would be able to do so when he went on a mission at 19.

For the next 14 years, Grossman said, her son endured humiliations such as having to crawl up the steps to his Sunday school class because there was no ramp.

When Zachary was ready for his mission, though, the bishop politely informed them the LDS First Presidency instructed bishops to stop sending the disabled on missions.

Their world collapsed, Grossman said, and they left the church. Their son has since earned a college degree in religious studies, traveled all over the world by himself and become a Catholic.

"With the Catholics, he finally felt God's love again," she said.

Does it really save gas to roll down your windows instead of flipping on the AC?

Does it really save gas to roll down your windows instead of flipping on the AC?: "It's summer, which means many drivers will be cranking up the AC or rolling down the windows to keep their cars from turning into mobile toaster ovens. Which method uses more gas? In a column first published last summer and reprinted below, the Green Lantern explained that it depends on how fast you're driving.

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