It’s been a long while since I’ve managed to even remember I had a blog, let alone sit down and type something.  We’ve had a very busy summer and fall and are still working on settling into winter.  The boys have been relatively healthy this summer and that has been an incredible blessing as we’ve gone through so many changes.  Our eldest has gone through the testing process to be diagnosed.  As usual, being seen by many different specialists, the results were somewhat contradictory.  This is to be expected, I believe, when the poor kid gets bounced from one place to the next without a consistent caregiver/diagnostician. 

We’ve suspected hearing problems for the eldest for a long time, but we’re a little surprised by the latest diagnosis of profound deafness and the need for a cochlear implant.  His speech therapist and teachers are insistent that he can hear and point out his progress with his speech as proof.  (He has been accepted into a special school program to help him adjust to the time when “real” school begins.  His class has 3-5 yr olds in it.  He is the youngest, and the biggest, child in his class.)   At home, he still has good days and bad days and many mixed days.  It’s all a little muddled. 

Neither one of the kids are sleeping tonight.  They’ve been to respite care for the weekend, and the night they come home is always hell.  You spend a great deal of time asking yourself if it’s really worth all the torment to everyone’s life.  The one golden moment after respite is when they come through the door and you see their beautiful little faces and have that instant parental gratification of seeing the little monsters you’ve been missing so much. 

Wubby is upstairs trying to reason with them.  Hmm. . .  Silence!  Apparently her skills are phenomenal, or else they’ve passed out from hyperventilation due to all the screaming and crying.

The computer is a complete mess and won’t let us access the internet. I’ve been working on it a little at a time, but with two toddlers wanting my attention, I’m really not able to spend the time with the computer necessary to figure it out.

Thanks to Wubby for letting me use her computer at work to look for helps online. She has our littlest one “helping” her work, as I peruse. Isn’t she lucky?

I seem to have a theme going here today.  These are metal and plastic containers of chemicals — fertilizers, insecticides and miscellaneous farming chemicals.  When we first moved in, they were spread over a much larger area.  Now they are stacked neatly (?), next to an old refrigerator and roller contraption.  Just beyond you can see an old Model T.  They are on the neighbors property, although they appear to be in our yard.

In my world view, this is just plain irresponsible.  The refrigerator needs to have the door removed, and then be taken to the dump.  The roller contraption and old car are too valuable to let rot in the severe weather.  They should be taken to a museum somewhere so nerds like me can ooh and aah!  And those chemicals should have been responsibly stored and removed when they were done using them.  There is a shed with a lock on the door, currently being used, right on the other side of this photo.  Just on the other side of that is a field.  Even though the farmer has tried to level it out, there remains a large depression that fills with water every Spring.  Guess where the migrating birds hang out?

All of those things mentioned above will probably happen mysterioiusly someday.  Still working out the logistics and researching disposal of the chemicals in a responsible and annonymous manner.    And luckily for anyone who stops by, my computer crashed right in the middle of typing this, so you were saved from one of my rants!

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1. The past couple of years have been filled with many more sleepless nights than I ever thought it would be possible for me to survive. On those rare occasions that we had a break, it was just enough to make you realize that your mind and body REALLY needed a break! Then miracle of miracles, we’ve been provided with a respite care provider. Yay, yay, yay, is all I have to say. I desperately miss the boys when they are gone, and think of them constantly, but I sleep straight through the nights. Last weekend was our long weekend, here in Canada, and it was glorious to just sleep. Then this weekend, we have two more days for sleeping. I am actually beginning to feel rested. It is a beautiful feeling!
2. Today is a warm, sunny day. Flies are buzzing and clouds are slowly moving across the sky. Tora is snoring beside me and the cats are exploring outside, then running back in the open door to safety. It’s a perfect lazy Saturday afternoon. Now if I only had a maid.
3. I love my pets and I love it when they go exploring with me. Angel is in the picture above. Someone moved an old wagon into the front yard, then left it here when we bought the house. It’s made out of wood, so it is slowly disintegrating, but in the meantime, it is providing shelter for new spruce and fir trees to grow. I love this piece of history in our yard, I love that the cats play on it, and I love that it functions as a nursery. It’s a beautiful thing.

Click on the photo above to visit the original Three Beautiful Things site.

There aren’t many shiny things in my preferred photo op locations.  There is usually a large assortment of odds and ends that have been dumped since the beginning of the last century, AND, much to our shock and chagrin, recently!  Shock and chagrin because we ask ourselves, “how can folks be so irresponsible, in this day and age, with all the knowledge we have?!”

There is another side to that though.  We find ourselves drawn to these areas.  We are curious about what was considered junk and what was considered worth saving (just have to look in the old grain sheds.  They are full of “treasure”.)  Some of these things are fun, and if in a safer location, we’d love for the boys to play on/in/with them (the old schoolbus, for instance.)

Today’s contribution is very shiny.  It was dumped here since we’ve moved in.  Someone parked a relatively new F250, took it apart, and left it that way.  I always wonder how they manage to do this without our being aware.  Perhaps we should pay more attention when the dogs bark?

I believe this is the front bumper to the F250.  There are so many other cars over there that it might be from one of them.  Who knows?  The chrome is still shiny enough to hurt your eyes, on the rare occasion that we get bright sunshine. 

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