Samantha Pierce

Today I am thankful for/that: I'm still in my right mind, I think. School starts a week from today. Nap time. What are you thankful for?

Someone else acting the fool does not give you free license to act the fool. Me. I've been saying some version of this to Sis3 since she learned how to walk. She's about to turn 16 and it hasn't quite sunk in yet. Someday it might.

Today I am thankful for/that: Peace and quiet. It doesn't come to the house often but I'm glad when it does. The kids (even Isaiah somewhat) seem to have resigned themselves to my randomly accosting them to look through their hair for nits. And they weren't nearly as upset about the second round of shampooing either. I just had to deal with their usual level of hair washing angst. Friends from far come near. The drunken sots brawling in the streets at three o'clock in the morning will quickly be buried under piles of course work once classes begin. What are you thankful for?

Alliteration can be so much fun! Anyway: It's not about you. Sherry A. mother of some refreshingly thoughtful and responsible young adults and teenagers. Hopefully more to come next week.

All three of our toilets were out of commission today. None of the tanks would hold water. They had actually been that way for a few weeks but we had been keeping the water turned off until we needed to flush. Hey, it conserved a lot of water. Anyway, with guests due to arrive on the doorstep in just few hours I couldn't procrastinate any longer. So I took apart the guts of all three toilets and took what I thought were the offending parts to the hardware store with me. I bought some parts that I thought would fit based on what I had with me. Then I rushed home to install them. In about 10 minutes I had put the guts back in to all three toilets with no extra bits left over. As of this posting they all seem to be in good working order. Not an errant trickle from a tank can be heard. Yeah me! Something went right for once, after going wrong of course.

Even though I'm a day late and have had to deal with some unpleasantness this week I did find somethings to be thankful for: I didn't have to burn anything to get rid the head lice. I could just wash/dry and/or spray everything. The kids still seem to like me even though I had to comb their hair with a nit comb. They are a little cautious about me getting to close to their heads though. Hubby didn't complain when I gave his hair the once over for head lice. Hubby didn't complain when I had him shave his beard as a precaution against spreading any more lice. I don't know if it was really necessary but why take chances. The washing machine and dryer haven't given out from the near constant use since Wednesday night. So what are you thankful for?

So the long and short of it is that Ethan picked up a case of head lice in summer school. Hubby and Sophia got head lice as well. Isaiah hates having his head touched so I don't know if he really had any head lice but I treated his hair anyway. I treated myself as well but I didn't find anything in my hair when I combed it out. So far I seem to be the only one who didn't have any lice. For kids who are terrified of having their hair combed having head lice is a real nightmare. It took hubby and me to comb most of the nits out of Ethan's hair on Wednesday night. Then on Thursday morning I literally had to wrestle Ethan to the floor in order to cut his hair. He had a lot of hair and I know I hadn't gotten all of the nits (eggs). I managed to do Isaiah's hair by myself because even though he resists having his hair combed he doesn't resist quite as strongly as Ethan does. Both boys screamed bloody murder the entire time. Ethan actually says "wah" when...

Scanner Tracks Who's Changing What on Wikipedia You might have suspected it, and ignored it until now in your online life: Wikipedia isn't the most reliable reference. It's just often the first source to come up when you do an online search. Now a new Web tool offers proof that you shouldn't use Wikipedia to write your school reports or compile biographical facts about your favorite singer (without checking elsewhere as well) because the company or the band you're researching is likely to have enhanced or polished its Wikipedia image. It isn't illegal. The whole point of the online encyclopedia is that it is collaborative and multi-sourced. I would have thought that it would be obvious that Wikipedia entries could easily fall prey to occasional inappropriate doctoring. The BBC News approach to this story is um, interesting: Wikipedia 'shows CIA page edits' An online tool that claims to reveal the identity of organisations that edit Wikipedia pages has re...

Well meaning people can be so annoying sometimes. Especially those times when they try to comfort you but are really just trying to comfort themselves. Especially when they ignore the reality of your life that you are trying to share with them to offer comfort to you which is really comfort to themselves. I had a conversation with someone this morning who frequently tells me, with regard to Isaiah, "Oh he'll talk when he's ready," and "One day he is just going to start talking." GRRRRRRRRR. This is supposed to make me feel better but all it really does is irritate me. It is especially irritating because it often comes in the middle of my responses to questions about how Isaiah is doing. It also tells me that this person hasn't been paying attention to all of the information that I have been passing on about autism. Nonverbal autistic kids like Isaiah don't just wake up one day and decide to talk. If a nonverbal autistic person becomes adept at using...

Today I am thankful for/that: This exchange while I was reading to Isaiah before I put him to bed: Me: (pointing to a tree on the page) What colour is it? Sophia: It's orange! Me: (giving Sophia the I know you know this but I'm asking him look) Isaiah, what colour is it? Sophia: It's...(looks expectantly at Isaiah) It's...(still looking expectantly at Isaiah) It's...(still looking expectantly at Isaiah), orange! In case you miss the significance of this exchange after blurting out the answer Sophia then essentially tried to prompt Isaiah to answer my question. When he didn't take the bait she modeled the correct response for him. She's a budding therapist. Sophia: (running down the driveway towards me with her arms wide open) Mommy! Me: Sophia! Sophia: (just before she plows into me) I know. When I checked on Isaiah after putting him to bed tonight I found him laying and the floor on his back half under his bed. He looked up at me and very slowly and ...

I made ice cream at home today for the kids. What fun! The boys weren't too freaked out by the noise of the ice cream maker. It is an old electric model that some friends from church gave us and it is loud . I think next time I crank it up I'll have to put it out on the back porch because after two batches the noise had me on edge. I made lactose free blueberry ice cream with thawed berries for my first batch. For the second batch I threw in some homemade strawberry jam that a friend gave us. Yum. Isaiah of course had to dunk something into the ice bath while I was cleaning up from the first batch. He went off looking for other trouble and didn't come back until the second batch came out of the ice bath...so he could try to play in the ice bath again. Ethan tried to eat the ice in the ice bath. We couldn't seem to convince him that salty ice water really isn't very good so I had to dump it into the skin rather quickly. Sophia was the only one who stayed clear of th...

Cross posted at Say Anything: Reader Blogs . In her recent post, Black Talk Radio, Marrying White, and Natural Allies La Shawn Barber blogged about this AP article, More Black Women Consider 'Dating Out': 'Could Mr. Right Be White?' More Black Women Follow Stars' Lead, Consider 'Dating Out' . The article on the changing relationship habits of black women features links to blogs such as Black Female Interracial Marriage: E-Zine on black women and interracial marriage options . I had visited this blog once before after reading about it in another post by La Shawn. I was, and still am, a bit puzzled that someone (and apparently several someones) would dedicate an entire blog to offering encouragement to black women who form relationships with non-black men. With responses like this, Growing Jungle Fever Among Black Women , it is perhaps a little less puzzling. As I read this particular blog reaction (and the comments) to the AP article the phrase "hot gh...

Facebook has a new addition called Scrabulous . It lets you play scrabble with your Facebook buddies. It's great because the kids can't wander by and knock over the board. I'm currently being trounced by hubby in our first game. I don't expect to pull off a surprise win either but I am totally hooked. There's gonna be a rematch. Update: The final score was 260 to 228 in hubby's favour. The rematch has already begun. Update 2: Second game was 280 to 219 again in hubby's favour. I've got to find some easier prey for this game. Hubby's mind is just too well suited for this kind of game for me to have any hope of beating him, yet.

Hubby reports that he is in the 130s for a page count and getting ready for some major rewriting/editing/whatever. December job market here we come!

Quiz time! This one's from Parableman You scored as Augustus , You are Augustus! First emperor of the Romans and one of the greatest statesmen in the ancient world. You brilliantly eased the old Republic into the Principate and set the path for an empire that would last for centuries and form the underpinnings for all western civilization. Hail Caesar! Augustus 86% Marcus Aurelius 68% Hadrian 64% Trajan 61% Tiberius 61% Antoninus Pius 57% Claudius 57% Vespasian 54% Nerva 46% Nero 46% Domitian 36% Vitellius 25% Caligula 4% Commodus 0% Which Roman Emperor Are You? created with QuizFarm.com I found these at Bits and Pieces . Your 80s Hunk Is Jason Bateman Who's Your 80s Hunk? No comment. You Are 34% Addicted to the Internet Internet? Please. You're definitely not geeky enough to be that addicted. You have a full life off your computer - and the internet is just a small pastime. Are You Addicted to the Internet?

The heat is melting my brain so it's hard to think about what I'm thankful for. I'll give it a try anyway. Today I am thankful for/that: Refrigeration. I really don't need to explain that do I? I married into the geek squad. I've always got someone to give me the low down on techie gadgets and gizmos. Sophia: "Mommmmmy!!! Take me to the bathroom!" She's started just going by herself in the last day or two. What are you thankful for?

I got this photo from the Wikipedia entry on skunks . Someone or something keeps irritating the local neighbourhood skunk(s). There seems to be a thriving population in the woods on the steep end of the drumlin a couple of streets uphill from my backyard. The resultant stench is driving me nuts. Many a night in the last two and a half weeks I have had the pleasure of falling asleep with the aroma of skunk stuck to the roof of my nasal passages. On a bad night it almost feels like the smell is seeping into the underside of my brain. I try to tell myself that it doesn't smell all that bad but really, it does. I'd like to find whoever or whatever is bothering the skunk(s) and lock them all in a nice airtight room (with CO2 scrubbers to prolong the experience for all of course). A few years ago we had what I called the summer of the skunk. Just about every night from about mid July until around the first hard frost there was skunk spray in the air. I think I even heard them knocki...