Roll out the red carpet. It’s Awards Time!

I don’t know what I did to deserve this cool award. My wonderful blogging friend JavaQueen, who I swear is my twin separated at birth, awarded me yet again.

“This award is given based on creativity, design, interesting material, and overall contribution to the blogging community”

Thank you so much, JavaQueen, for the award. If you want to see her other (and, in my opinion, more deserving) award recipients, you can go here.

Here are the rules for the Fabulous Five I have selected:
1) Choose 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award based on creativity, design, interesting material, and overall contribution to the blogger community, regardless of the language.
2) Post the name of the author and a link to his or her blog by so everyone can view it.
3) Each award-winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award.
4) The award-winner and the presenter should post the link of the “Arte y pico“blog , so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5) Please post these rules.

Without further delay, here are my 5 award recipients.

1. Matthew K. Tabor- Education for the Aughts

~Matthew was one of the first bloggers that I started reading regularly, and one of the first that I added to my Google Reader feed. I always learn something new from his blog and from the commenters that post there. He has a great list of education-related blogs, as well as other “smart blogs” that are definitely worth the read. He has been nominated for several education blogging awards. I am blessed to consider him a friend.

2. Patient Anonymous

~Patient Anonymous, or PA as she calls herself on her blog, is a blogger that you MUST read if you are interested in mental health issues, honest writing, and getting to know a fantastic person. I think she and I must be related in some past life because we are a lot alike. I have been fortunate to chat with her on several occasions, and she is a fabulous person. Don’t miss her blog.

3. Greybeard’s Cracked Head Blog

~Greybeard is another one of my “inner circle” friends in the blogosphere. He posted a comment on my blog one day when I started opening up about my depression, and he and I have stuck together like glue ever since. I respect how honest he is in his blog. It takes a lot of courage to put your life out on the ‘Net for everyone to read. He is wise beyond his years. He is a great poet, too. He and I both post poetry on the Almost-Dead Poets Society blog. Get to know this guy. He won’t steer you wrong.

4. Earnest Parenting

~ AmyL, as she is known on her blog Earnest Parenting, is someone that I actually know in real life. She is a wonderful friend, parent, and all-around person. She also posts on the GNMParents blog (which is another fine resource of parenting blogging.) Amy and I have known each other for at least 3 1/2 years (I think… if memory serves me correct), and I love her like a sister. She is down-to-earth, and a must-read blogger.

5. Letters From Exile

~ La… what can I say about the incredibly talented La? I met her through an unfortunate event- both of our blogs were scraped, and she alerted me via an email. Through her tireless efforts of contacting everyone who was scraped by this one unscrupulous person, all of us banded together and got the scraper’s blog shut down! Now that’s a determined Scottish lass! She is a fantastic writer, great friend, and she and I have much in common. If you haven’t checked her blog out, you must.

Here’s a quickie

Just a quick few words here… it’s 1:17am here and I have to get to bed.

We returned yesterday from 6 days of camping with DH’s family for the annual family reunion. It. rained. every. single. day.

I had counseling yesterday. Still am having issues with feeling alone even though I’m surrounded by people that I hope care about me.

Today I have an appointment with the nurse practitioner psychiatrist to do another medication evaluation.

Next week Casey and I both go in for a neuropsychologist evaluation. I asked my therapist if it would be a good idea if I had one done, too, and she thought it was a good idea. I was planning on getting one done for Casey anyway before school started back up again.

Since I’ve been on the Cymbalta I’ve gained 20-23 pounds. Not good…. especially since I don’t want to gain weight.

There is a HUGE buzz going on about Michael Savage and his hideous remarks about autism. In my “must-read bloggers” section, I have a link to a blog from the Autism Hub blogger network. I will be writing about this because the whole situation makes me see blood red.

Misterbooks- if you’re out there, you must be haunting me. I was at Wal-Mart and saw a Best of The Ramones CD. Then, when I was listening to NPR World Cafe’, they played a Neil Young song. I hope you’re doing OK.

Summertime, and the reading is easy

Image courtesy of Amazon.com

I have just finished this book by Jodi Picoult, called “Second Glance”. If you are into historical fiction, mystery, ghosts, and a touch of romance, then this is the book for you.

I could not put this book down! I enjoyed every twist and turn Picoult threw in my way. I like how this author can set up the characters, then all of a sudden they are connected in ways that you never thought could happen.

This book is a bit graphic in that it does deal with heated topics such as suicide, eugenics (sorting out the genes… the survival of the fittest as it were), and segregation. But, don’t let that keep you away from a thrilling read.

Jodi Picoult is one of my favorite authors. I hope that you will find this book and enjoy it as much as I did.

Adding stuff to the sidebar

I’ve added two new things to the sidebar. I have a new “Mood Alert” (Hat Tip to FXSMom for the cool site.) I also have added a link to my favorite blog posts, under “The Must-Read Bloggers” (Hat Tip to Greybeard for helping me figure out how to put it on my blog.)

Enjoy the new stuff!

The cute things he says…

Living with twins is an adventure every day. When one of those twins has autism, it is even a bigger adventure.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the boys have been either best friends or mortal enemies. Some of their fights are knock-down-drag-out, others are complete verbal sparring. The verbal sparring ones usually send me chuckling when Casey has his witticisms thrown in for good measure.

♦ One day the boys were fighting over their GeoTrax toys. The big fuss was over track design. Casey likes to construct his trax as accurately to a freeway design as possible. Kerry doesn’t care; he places his trax wherever he wants. I was playing referee with the boys one at a time, each boy pleading his case. When I asked Casey why he didn’t just work with Kerry, he got an indignant look on his face, puckered his lips in pure upset, and proclaimed, “Momma, I don’t want to collaborate!”  After he left, I started laughing. What other 7 year old would use the word “collaborate”?

♦ Today the boys were squabbling over breakfast, a frequent occurrence this summer. While Kerry was declaring his superiority over Casey because he “reads more” than Casey, Casey states, “Oh yeah… well, what’s the second tallest peak in the world, huh???”

Life with those two is never dull.