Wild-Heart.net

It was long, yet not long enough. We arrived late and it was already drizzling. There are a couple of short videos added to the collection on the Videos page (link on the right or the button up top). Has my son changed since in his first 3 weeks at Youth Challenge? I think so. It’s easier to tell in his letters and his phone calls than it was from our visit yesterday. After about an hour of indulging in sugar and caffeine, I really didn’t get much of a chance to visit with him as he was hyper and all over the place. For him it was a day of freedom. He was able to listen to music for the first time in 3 weeks and have a few hours of unrestricted time. I heard many words of praise from his Cadre, Sergeants and various other staff members. It was a good day. Even though we had to leave early due to my back going out. Didn’t seem to phase him, though. He was too hyped on Mt. Dew and the excitement of getting to do the repelling tower again with his buddies. I think I miss him twice as much now. *sigh*

And I could use a little help finding it. Perchance one of you might have it tucked away in your recipe box. If so, I don’t know how I could repay you but I’ll come up with something! The recipe is for Peanut Butter Bars. I originally found the recipe 7 years ago on AllRecipes.com. I’ve been through every single peanut butter recipe on that site in the last two weeks and have yet to recover it. I used to have a notebook filled with all of my families favorite recipes. It seems to have grown feet and walked away. Back to the recipe. There is no oatmeal in this one, nor is there chocolate of any variety, however, they do have the consistency of a chewy brownie after they are baked. The first part of the recipe calls for the peanut butter, butter/margarine, and sugar to be slowly melted together in a sauce pan and allowed to cool before stirring in the eggs and flour. I don’t remember if there is vanilla extract in the recipe or not.

Why, you may ask is this recipe so important? And why and am I in such a desperate rush to find it? As you might recall, Boy #1 is attending National Guard Youth Challenge. This Saturday is Family Day. We are allowed to bring them treats and favorite foods from home. All he really wants is two things, these Peanut Butter Bars and a McDonald’s cheeseburger. The later because, “Momma, I’m so sick of canteen food. It’s not bad but it’s not good either. I know you’ll have to get it the night before and it will be cold, I don’t care. It will be better than any burger I’ve ate in the last month!”

Any who, if the details of the recipe that I have given have rung any bells, please, leave me a comment or use the contact form (link is on the right) and share! Meanwhile, I will try to come up with a way to reward whomever is able to accomplish this mission.

A parental tool of discipline! I wish I had thought of this earlier. In past couple of days I have discovered a way to get the children to do what they’ve been asked to do. They, just like Little Bunny Foo-Foo, get three chances, if they still aren’t behaving they get subjected to early 80’s Power Ballads. Who wouldn’t do anything to make Chicago stop singing Hard To Say I’m Sorry? Bwahahahaha! And YouTube gives me quick and easy access to such atrocities. By the time he gets to, “Hold me now,” they are apologizing, begging for me to make it stop and doing what has been asked of them. I love you, YouTube.

And I want to pull my hair back and scream, “I don’t want to be the queen!”

…Will I be suckered in by WalMart.com’s offer of free shipping by way of their Site-to-Store service. The waiting period is agonizingly slow. And I am being bit in the arse by my own frugality everyday that passes that I do not receive the email letting me know that my order has arrived for pick-up at my store. One part of my order left the sorting facility in SC on the 4th and its status has been listed since then as as “in route to delivery facility.” For those of you with rudimentary geography skills that know I live in middle Georgia, you might find yourself as perplexed as I am. It would seem that somewhere between South Carolina and our chosen store in Macon, there is a Delivery Facility and so far that one portion of the order has been in route to that delivery facility for six freakin’ days!

The other portion of the order is listed as having been shipped and “in route” to the “sorting facility” since the 4th. This has gone beyond ridiculous. And I can honestly say this is the first time my frugality has bitten me in the ass. I just have this gut feeling that when the items finally arrive at our store for pick-up something is going to be damaged. *sigh*

Technorati Tags: Wal-Mart, site-to-store

Most of the time, Boy #2, who is a few years and a basement away from becoming  an internet addicted, basement dweller, only leaving home to go to work at Best Buy or Circuit City…. Sorry got lost in there for a second… Anyway, most of the url’s to YouTube that he sends me are lame and of no interest to me. But this one is pure genius! I laughed until my side hurt! And there is a whole series of ‘em!

My apologies for the lack of posting. It’s been quite hectic here. Keeping a sharp on Boy #1 while waiting for this coming Saturday to arrive when we deliver him to Ft. Gordon for his first day of classes at National Guard Youth Challenge whilst attempting to school Boy #2 and Baby Boy has been a challenge.

There are so many songs that pull at my Celtic heartstrings that I could share with you today. Songs that make my heart and soul long for home, that small Irish-Catholic farming community of one Church and one pub full of extended family where everyone is related to everyone in one way or another. Where they say our Great-great-grandfathers decided to settle because the land of gently rolling hills, valleys and streams reminded them of their homes they left behind in Ireland. But I couldn’t pick just one.

Since this week is so focused on Boy #1 taking a huge step to change his life for the better and will be ending with his departing from us for 22 weeks, the song that seems most fitting is Danny Boy. When Boy #1 was an infant and toddler and we happened to be at my parent’s house, if it was time him to have a nap or if he was simply fussy, my father loved to snatch him away from me, sit down with him in the rocking-recliner and very quietyly sing Danny Boy to him. It always quickly calmed him and now and then I would catch a tear falling down my fathers face as he watched his first-born grandchild slumber in his arms. They share a bond that at times has infuriated me beyond belief, one that I have tried desperately to comprehend over the last 16 years. Regardless, on this St. Patrick’s Day, my father’s second favorite holiday of the year, and this being the week that Boy #1 starts a new journey into manhood, I’m going to share Danny Boy.

Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountainside.
The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling.
‘Tis you, ’tis you must go and I must bide.
But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow
Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow,
‘Tis I’ll be there in sunshine or in shadow.
Oh Danny Boy, Oh Danny Boy, I love you so.

I found this over at Agelika’s other blog. I swear to you this is exactly how Boy#1 and Boy#2 interact with each other everyday of their lives and always have.

Sometimes I feel like a Beverly Cleary character all grown up with  her very own outrageous family in action.

Things are sort of falling back into a regular routine around here.  I’ve put off blogging about the trip to see the specialist at Emory because it is  rather odd for me to deal with at the moment. The good news is that the med that my local cardiologist put me on has the pulmonary stenosis back at a mild state. But she discovered that I have a 5.4cm main pulmonary artery aneurysm. Currently she is working with all of my doctors to track down the cause of the aneurysm before deciding on how best to approach correction of it. She highly suspects a genetic form of a connective tissue disorder. If this turns out to be the case then it determines the way the surgeons repair the aneurysm, they would do a wrap type of procedure instead of a graft type. In the meantime, I was told to try to remain as stress free as possible and to keep taking my anti-anxiety medications as Rx’d by my neuro-psyche.Allof the lab work for Lupus and other common connective tissue disorders and coronary artery disease came back negative. So the next step is an MRI to check for MS, which my neuro-psyche said is possible that I might have but highly unlikely to be the cause of the aneurysm as I would have to be at the end stage of the advanced-progressive type for it to be affecting my internal organs and to have caused that. (Think: Annette Funicello) and there are no signs of any type of MS being at that stage. But it’s all part of what must be done and tested for in order for insurance to cover the genetic test for the type of connective tissue disorder she thinks is running in our family and my neuro-psyche after getting into more detail about my physcial medical history and family medical history tends to agree with her.

In the meantime, trying to stay calm and mellow with 2 teenagers and a schizoaffective child and a certain other outside influences is certainly a challenge but one in which I’m attempting and the kids are finally starting to come around to reigning in their obnoxious boy-only household behavior. I’ve also updated my will, living will and power of attorney in the last week as I was told to do. “Just in case, you know.”

With all of that out of the way I’ve become aware of just how precious everyday is and I’m not going to let any certain outside influences continue to screw with my family and our peace and happiness. From now on it is gloves off when dealing with these sorts. Life is too short to spend it in a state of stress and anxiety brought on by the poor behavior of other people.

KDE4 was released yesterday. Yay! Not really. It’s lovely but still obviously not quite ready for prime time for those who like to configure their main panel. Even worse was an ATI driver update on the same day that hosed my xorg.conf. Got that straightened out.

As I recently told a friend:  I think I play with various Linux distros (read: torture myself with) is because they give me something to challenge my intellect with. Something to fuss and frett over that I can have that moment of victory that leaves me with that moment of having the feeling of, “Yes, bitch! You are mine! I won and you lost! Take that!” Life doesn’t provide me with very many opportunities to accel or conquer many problems and we all know how unappropriate those words would be if used when getting the upperhand in a parental situation. LOL

Tonight the youth minister whom voluntered to be Boy#1’s mentor for National Guard Youth Challenge is joining us for supper and paperwork. Tomorrow my sister in-law and her family will be visiting and Monday it’s up to ATL to the clinic at Emory.

Not enough hours in a day.

They started in at 04:00. We were able to ward them off until 07:00. I hope you’re all having a fabulous holiday. The following was the only good picture I was able to get of the four of the boys together.

As you can see, I wasn’t able to get them to sit down. If they would have you’d have been able to see my Cindy-Lou Who tree in all of it’s pathetic glory.

I’m taking a bit of a hiatus for the rest of the month and possibly most of January. I don’t know how much time I’ll available to blog as it will be incredibly busy once the two public school boys are back in school from their winter break. I’ll have a couple of local doctor appointments and then my local cardiologist has referred me to The Emory Adult Congenital Cardiac Clinic. That appointment falls during the second week of January and from what my local cardiologist, neurologist and internist have told me from the results of the latest echocardiogram, we can expect it to be the first of many visits to the clinic which is two hours from here.

I want to thank Kate and Slobo for all of their help in getting me started on the various paths to making money off blogging. I hope the two of you don’t feel it was all in vain. Life has been hectic to say the least and blogging has become one of those things that currently feels like a chore. Gods know I have enough chores to do away from the keyboard to worry about appeasing potential advertisers at the moment. I still read everyone linked in my blogroll and comment when I have time.

Next I want to thank my dear friend Lisa who’s book has finally hit the shelves. Not only did she send me a personally signed copy of the book but I was surprised to find myself not only listed in the Acknowledgments but also mentioned in the first paragraph of the first chapter. I’m such a sap. Those pages are tear stained. Thank you, Lisa. And of course I highly recommend the book to those just starting out with WordPress or even those just looking to brush up their WordPress skills.

And now I’ll leave you with the only Holiday song I seem to be able to stand this year. Even though I’ve taken the role of Grinch this year, I wish you all a blessed and happy holiday season and New Year.

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2007. I swear this year is simply trying to kick my ass to see how much I can handle.

Late Monday evening, Boy #2 woke up with a stomach ache. We assumed it was either a virus or gas as the tummy pain wasn’t localized. The stomach pain continued through yesterday but by 20:00 the pain had become localized to his right side and more severe. We could have taken him to the pediatrician’s after hours clinic but I knew if they suspected appendicitis they would send us to the hospital, the same if we went to the urgent care clinic, so we went directly to the emergency room.

We didn’t have a very long wait in the waiting room. The doctor and first year resident ordered lab work which came back with a sky high white count, so off to radiology they sent us for a CT-scan. Twenty minutes later we had the results. Acute appendicitis.  They went ahead and started his IV line in the ER and gave him some Nubain for the pain.  Then we had to wait and see if the surgeon on call and the anesthesia team would be willing to perform the procedure at that particular hospital. We had taken him to the hospital closest to home (about a 5 minute drive). It seemed that the problem was that they do not do pediatric surgeries so they first had to find out if the surgeon would do it, he asked his hight and weight (5′ 6″, 129) and said, “He’s the size of a small man, I’ll do it, let me know what anesthesia says.” At first they didn’t want to do it. So they made calls to the other two hospitals in town and nope, they couldn’t do it, they were backed up and wouldn’t be able to touch him until sometime later this afternoon at the earliest, they relented and agreed to perform the procedure where he was.

The surgeon was able to remove his appendix with the lap/scope procedure. He started at 02:00 was done in 45 minutes. Boy #2 then spent an hour in recovery before they brought him up to his room. They discharged him this afternoon at 14:00. Man, was he ready to get the heck out of there and come home. He had been ready to get home since they brought him his breakfast tray of “clear liquids only.” For the next 4 hours it was like having a grumpy old man in the room. “I want real food. I need something I can sink my teeth into. I’m sick of peeing into this jug thingy.  Can’t you talk to the nurse and tell her she HAS to let me go home now?!” Heh. He’s been resting comfortably and has had no need for the Lortab they sent him home with. Ibuprofen has been sufficient to keep his surgical pain under control.

I  thought that tomorrow we might have a day of reprieve. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to work out that way. Baby Boy and I had appointments scheduled with our neuro-shrink for Friday but his office called and asked us to reschedule for tomorrow morning. Neuro-shrink is also a forensic-shrink and he was called in for more testimony for a trial at the last minute for Friday so they had to shuffle things around.

Damn. I’m exhausted.

Why not? That’s what we’ll be doing later today. We planned this with friends almost a year in advance. While getting together with family and extended family to celebrate the official holiday is great, we got to talking about how nice it would be to have a Thanksgiving Dinner with just friends with no worries about dressing up the children or worrying about who you or your spouse might offend because we all know as much as we love our families and enjoy spending time with them, they are more easily offended than our close friends are. And gods love him, but I think when we get together with Joseph’s family he lives to say offensive things that he knows will make his mother cringe and twitch so I spend our family get togethers holding my breath hoping my children don’t act like they were raised by wolves and that Joseph doesn’t alienate his mother any further than he already has.

I’m bringing the Bob Andy pie and Pumpkin pie and the stuffing. My back and hips are currently protesting a great deal. I think it was the prep work for the stuffing that did it. I’ve yet to find in any grocery store down here, unseasoned stuffing. You know, the dried bread cubes? Everything is always pre-seasoned. That means I end up having to toast the bread and cut the cubes myself along with the other goodies that go into recipe. Too much time on my feet.

Any who… I hope y’all are enjoying your Sunday.

So, how does one celebrate Halloween when taking into consideration the needs of a child with early onset schizoaffective disorder? The difficulty arises because any sort of play involving imagination has the potential to break the barrier in his mind between reality and fantasy and the two become one. So this year, while Boy #1 is helping out at his church’s haunted house, the rest of us will be having our own little at home celebration. Ordering in pizza, having obligatory cupcakes and watching the only Don Knotts movie that I can stand to sit through. The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.

My short list of my biggest pet peeves. In no particular order. Strike that. The first one is my biggest.

• Habitual Liars.
• People who can’t keep their noses out of other people’s business.
• People who gossip.
• People who don’t flush the toilet.
• People who don’t listen to you when conversing with them and then proceed to take some sort of imaginary offense at something you supposedly said but didn’t say because they have zero clue because they weren’t really listening to begin with.
• People who do everything at the last minute.
• People 14 and over who cannot wake up to an alarm clock and get themselves ready for work or school w/out having to be constantly re-woken every 5 minutes until they are out of the door.

I’ll bet you have a list. Wanna share?

Baby Boy was discharged from the hospital on Saturday. The first thing I noticed when we arrived was how disorganized his thoughts and behavior still was. I asked the charge nurse if he had been this way since his admission or if this was just excitement over going home and he said that he had been like that for the duration.

The changes the hospital doctor made to his medication was to taper him off of Xanax during the 5 days that he was there, moved his Abilify to
bedtime instead of morning and made the Seroquel at bedtime permanent as opposed to as needed. He kept him on the 100 mg Lamictal at morning and noon and 200 mg at bedtime. At least he is finally sleeping again and the voices and visions have drastically minimized.

Baby Boy is very slowly starting show some progress at home towards being less violent and and defiant but it is still very obvious that he is cycling frequently through the day and responding to the slightest of stresses with outbursts of rage. The staff at the hospital said they had to frequently redirect his behavior, when we calmly attempt this at home he becomes agitated and aggressive.

Whenever he is in a calm state and I attempt to calmly and quietly work with him on the things we talked about during our family session at the hospital, such as creating a daily schedule that he can see and follow for more structure and practicing going to time-out calmly, and how to ignore his big brothers so that they don’t have the power to trigger him, he becomes violent and it triggers another round of mania. I’ve emailed his regular psychiatrist with all of this information. I think he’s either going through Xanax withdrawal still or Lamictal alone as a mood stabilizer during the day just isn’t going to do the job.

And yet somehow through it all, we’ve been able to complete our homeschool lessons yesterday and today. Granted, it took much longer than it used to but we made it through. Today was better than yesterday which left me with bruised shins and multiple bite bruises received when attempting to stop him from rhythmically beating his head on the wall.

Tonight was actually a rather good night for him, too. The first since he’s been back home. He and Bonus Boy both got in trouble and landed themselves in timeout for cursing out Boy #2 because he was fighting off a migraine and didn’t want to take them for a walk. They didn’t think I was within hearing distance. They were wrong and both were sent to the kitchen table for time-out. Poor child, I think it helped to have a partner in time-out. Something about it made him stop and think about what he had been doing the last three days and we had a good talk when it was over. Now, if he just remembers it in the morning. *sigh*

I can’t hit a ball, never could, and I feel like I’ve been stuck in a batting cage for the last month dodging a never ending barrage of balls being pitched at me.

Where to begin? As if any of this matters other than clearing cobwebs from my mind so that maybe I’ll actually feel like blogging again instead of hiding.

Let’s start with the quack of a doctor I started seeing for primary care last fall who informed me that I have COPD, told me that it was in my medical records yet refused to show me where exactly in my records it was and when my symptoms were not getting better refused to refer me to a pulmonologist or a cardiologist even though it had been over six years since having seen either one. Well, I finally found and had my insurance change me over to an internist that seems to be relatively competent. He would have an even better time of doing his job if the afore mentioned quack would release my medical records to him.

New doctor set me up with a referral to a pulmonologist. Pulmonologist reviewed my x-rays, had me do a breathing test, said my asthma is under control and the problem is not COPD but that as I had suspected, the pulmonic valve stenosis stuff is worse and that I need to get a referral to a cardiologist as soon as possible because with the symptoms I am exhibiting it is possibly time to replace that heart valve and, “when you go, if they decide it’s time, make sure you tell them that I want to be on the surgical respiratory team because what you have is really rather rare and I’d love to be there for the surgery.” Gee, Doc, you bet, I’ll make sure you get to be there for the freak show. Still waiting to hear back from my internist on the cardiology referral.

Then there was the referral to the GYN. It had been 5 years since I’d had the lovely pap done. Yes, I know. I am a Darwin candidate. Especially since I’ve had three procedures to remove (non-HPV related thank you very much) pre-cancerous cells removed in the past. She did the exam and history, etc. Asked if had any concerns or questions. I let her know that I’ve had no less than 12 menses since the first of the year and about the cervical pain I experience during sex. She had no answer for the frequent menses other than a possible sign of perimenipause and/or stress and then told me that the cervical pain was most likely all psychological in nature. Lovely. Nothing like having the person who just peered up your vagina telling you that you have mental health issues with sex. Five days later I got a call from the GYN telling me that my pap results came back with results for a non-STD related bacterial infection and she actually apologized and said that was the cause of my cervical pain. When I asked her what caused the infection she made a statement that made my husband beam with pride when I later told him, “These types of infections are usually the result of repeat injury to the cervix, if your partner is well endowed, that is the most likely cause of the repeat injury leaving the cervix vulnerable to infection from normal bacteria.” Way to go, Joe! In the mean time, I’ve had cramps like a mofo ever since that pap three weeks ago. Made worse by the pelvic ultrasound that she scheduled and that I had done yesterday. Talk about a surprise. I hobbled my way back to the exam room and the tech pulls out the vaginal probe, “I’m going to be doing a vaginal ultrasound today, we get clearer pictures of the uterus and the ovaries this way.” Way to ruin a day.

I think I can talk briefly, in circles about how things are going concerning the information in the password protected post. Let me just say, after having played the nice neighbor once in this neighborhood and the one neighbor that became a daily part of our lives losing his mind and murdering someone, I will never again be the friendly neighbor. I don’t want to know who my neighbors are. I don’t want my children to know who our neighbors are. Baby Boy is just now starting to re-stabilize after having to deal with the trauma of another male figure in his life doing something horrifying.

On the plus side of things, I think we’ve finally found our homeschool groove. Boy #2 distracts Baby Boy and Baby Boy distracts Boy #2. Boy #2 however, is a night owl, so he stays up late, logs in and does his school work from 9pm until 2am and then sleeps until 11am. Baby Boy works on his school work from 7:30am until noon. Unconventional but it works for us. The best part is that it keeps Boy #1 and Boy #2 from their previous routine of bitching at each other for at least an hour every night at bedtime until one of them gives up and falls asleep.

Another positive, the topamax has done wonders at keeping the migraines at bay and even seems to be helping the fibromyalgia a bit. It’s also a wonderful thing to have the flexeril on hand for the days when the spasms and spasticity would otherwise have me tethered to the walker.

At the close of a week that seemed fought with the difficulties of the the dramas of the bus situation and school IEP compliance difficulties with Boy #1, and the struggles of attempting to get Boy #2 to focus on his homeschool work instead of drifting off into drawing and music applications, there have been a couple of positive things happen this week. They are very significantly positive things for me.

1. Bonus Boy’s mother and I are finally communicating.
2. My sister and I are communicating again after nearly two years of silence.

The week ended much better, really, than it started. I have to remind myself of that fact. Living in a testosterone ladened household tends to make it very difficult to see the trees for the forest at times. Any who. I’ll probably get grief for the song I’m about to leave you with but hey, it’s a feel good song and it’s a positive one.

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“[...]it is our strong recommendation that you make arrangements for your son to be picked up from school today instead of riding the bus home. It has been brought to our attention that further threats to his person have been made and until we have arrested those who forced their way onto the bus yesterday and attacked him, which should be later this afternoon, we recommend he not ride the school bus.”

That was from the phone call I received from Campus Police about an hour or so ago concerning the drama that occurred yesterday with Boy #1. I assume the “we” she was referring to was County Police/Deputies in cooperation with Campus Police. Yeap. Nothing like teen drama on a bus that serves quite the varied social populous. Seems that one of the kids who plays him as a fair weather friend played off some of his own remarks about one of these thugs little brothers and passed them off as Boy #1’s remarks. Impossible as Boy #1 no longer has anything to do with this kid since he gave him candy towards the end of the last school year and it turned out to be meth (took a $25 drug test to figure it out) and we spent several hours helping him go through the tweaking out phase of a first time user. Oh yes, as if parents don’t have enough to worry about, 12-14 year olds are actually giving meth away, telling other students that it’s candy because that’s the new trend, flavoring the crap so it tastes like candy. F*ckers. So the boy has had it out for Boy #1 since he and I reported it to the proper officials at the school and the police department.

Two neighborhood drop-out thugs from up the street forced their way onto the school bus yesterday afternoon and proceeded to pound the crud out of Boy #1. Had this happened out on the street I would have understood if he fought to defend himself. However, this was on the school bus and I’ve got to say that as sick as it might sound to others, I’m proud of him for keeping his hands to himself and not fighting back. I’m so very proud that he was able to maintain that much control of himself. Why should I be? Because he is normally very impulsive due to the bipolar disorder and being a teenager, he acts without thinking and in the past that has gotten him written up and suspended from the bus more times than I care to remember.

He maintained control. That means his meds are working. Belittle me if you wish but I’m proud of him. The result is that this time, the punks that started this are going to be charged with assault and battery and my son isn’t getting yet another mark on his school record.

Blogged about something you really enjoy? I mean something that brought an emmese amount of joy into your life on a daily basis. And then has the comments for that blog post made you absolutely sickened by that thing to the point that you mourn the loss of the joy it used to bring you?

Just wondering because that’s how I’m starting to feel about the song on this post. The popularity of that post and song thanks to that bleepity-bleeping M&M’s commercial is really starting to make me bitter.

When I saw this opportunity to tell you about element skateboards and zero skateboards I absolutely had to take it. For long time readers the reason should be obvious. With four boys in the house that means four skaters in the house which means that I’ve heard a LOT about Modern Skate & Surf Co. over the years. Their website is one of their regular stops when surfing the internet. Which always leads to a lot of, “Hey, Mom! Check out this board!”

In our neighborhood, skateboarding is one of those few things that I don’t mind the boys doing. Gods know we can’t keep a decent bike around here for long before it is stolen. In the last 3 years We’ve filed four police reports for stolen BMX style bikes but not a single one for a skateboard. Living in a townhome there is no room to bring 4 bikes in the house when they aren’t being used and yes we have even tried chaining and locking them. But skateboards slide right under beds and sofas. Not to mention they are just simply cool as heck. Have you seen the deck designs of some of these element skateboards and zero skateboards?

All to frequently, I am reminded that while I love to tinker and fight my way through Linux user difficulties and make my OS bend to my will, I never post my solutions. That’s rather thoughtless of me and I swear I’ll try to better from now on. This latest difficulty was getting an actual widescreen resolution that our Vizio HDTV would recognize and that my ATI video card would display.

You might wonder why I would even want to go through this trouble. Well, this school year, instead of having one of the boys homeschooling using an online school, we have two and we really needed another computer running in our homeschool area of the livingroom. Both Boy #2 and Baby Boy are early risers and do their best work in the morning. With only one windows pc for their use it became obvious last week that we were going to struggle and fight if we didn’t build another frankenputer this weekend. But that left the question of where was my computer going to go? The only logical solution was to bring it upstairs. I honestly am not at my computer very often. I stop by and check my email and IM’s and downloads through the day but aside from that, I’m too busy with the boys. So here I now sit at the loveseat that is placed at the end of our bed with my computer attached to the 26″ HDTV.

For two days all I could get the television to work with the video card was a resolution of 1024×768. It wasn’t pretty. Well, It was pretty but it was also pretty stretched on the horizontal. No amount of configuration of xoorg.conf seemed to solve the problem. I searched the Ubuntu formums to no avail. Every solution found there failed. I did however find one mention of setting the modeline in xorg.conf for the monitor to be specific for the video card. It took me over 12 hours of more searching to find a way ti fingure out how to go about figuring what the modeline for my video card would be. Eventually I found this HOWTO Widescreen Resolutions on Gentoo-wiki.org.

As you can see their instructions are specific for an Nvidia card but the same theory applies for ATI/fglrx. If you have an ATI card and drivers insalled and having the same difficulties here are the lines in Xorg.0.log that we (yes, even Joseph happily joined in on the Linux fun this time) found and used to make my custom modeline for xorg.conf:

(II) fglrx(0): Supported additional Video Mode:
(II) fglrx(0): clock: 85.5 MHz Image Size: 1096 x 640 mm
(II) fglrx(0): h_active: 1360 h_sync: 1424 h_sync_end 1536 h_blank_end 1792 h_border: 0
(II) fglrx(0): v_active: 768 v_sync: 771 v_sync_end 777 v_blanking: 795 v_border: 0

From that information we were able to use the sample on the gentoo wiki page linked above to come up with the following custom modeline to add to Section: “Monitor”:

ModeLine "1360x768" 85.5 1360 1424 1536 1792 768 771 777 795

After that we also added the resolution that is listed in that modeline (1360×768) to all of the display lines. Saved everything and rebooted while saying prayers with crossed fingers and held breath. Viola! I now have a happy and perfectly displayed widescreen resolution with linux. I hope this can be of some help to someone out there because honestly the information on setting up xorg to work with a widescreen HDTV is very slim.

If any of you, and I know there at a LOT of you who read and never comment, happen to know where I could find coloring pages for/from the new Transformers movie I would be eternally grateful. I’ve got a 9 year old obsessed to the point of psychotic fixation insisting that he must have something from the new movie to do his next creative writing assignment with. Thanks in advance. And yes, I have exhausted Google.

I don’t say this for pity. Pity is for suffering, not for surviving. However, in the last year there was some news that came about concerning Wynonna and abuse suffered by her daughter and the struggles they have gone through. We’ve gone through much the same with Baby Boy on top of everything else. This song is a beautiful one full of hope and calm and strength. Open it in a new window and share it with your families.

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Thank you for the birthday wishes. They meant more to me than you or I could have guessed.

Every year around this time I have an eleven card Celtic Cross spread Tarot reading done. I always find the results interesting and like to go back to them throughout the year for inspiration.

Self: Temperance
POSITIONAL (MAIN) MEANING
The time is now for self-healing.
The card in the Self position reveals aspects of how you perceive yourself right now.
With Temperance in this position, you are ready to take responsibility for getting well, no matter what it takes. The quest for health could be on a physical, emotional or mental level, or it may have to do with paying off “karmic dues.”
The work is to clear up past dysfunction and address entangled emotions. The process will purge the toxic waste of unfinished business that disables you. When you are ready, mix your powerful medicine. This is the right time to start healing yourself.

Situation: The Lovers
POSITIONAL (MAIN) MEANING
You are faced with a choice, one that challenges your ability to trust yourself.
The card that lands in the Situation position refers to social or circumstantial factors which could be affecting your life at this time.
When the Lovers card appears in this position, you may be coming to a fork in the road. One path must be chosen, the other path let go of. It is hard to know which is the correct choice.
There may be no way the long-term results can be predicted, because there are no outer references that can be relied upon. You’ll have to use your intuition. If you go within and are honest with yourself, you could make the appropriate choice. However if you are just fooling around, it could turn out to be a costly decision.

Challenges/ Opportunities: Six of Wands
POSITIONAL (MAIN) MEANING
Define your mission and get organized so that tremendous energy is not wasted.
The card that lands in the Challenges/Opportunities position refers to ways that you can turn obstacles into stepping stones.
The Six of Wands in this position says to rally the attention of others around the next essential steps, before the energy that is available to you becomes scattered. As enthusiasm builds, you may have to deal with some confusion or contention, but a team leader needs to assess the situation and take charge before too much energy is wasted.
You may or may not choose to be that leader, but it’s advisable to evaluate your role in the project or situation — it is gathering momentum and building up a tremendous amount of energy that may prove to be valuable to you.

Foundation: Five of Wands
POSITIONAL (MAIN) MEANING
Knowing how teamwork sometimes fails and situations can change for the worse, you are challenged to sidestep conflict and set your sights on the greater good.
The card in the Foundation position points to influences from your personal history, your roots and background.
The Five of Wands in this position suggests that you have witnessed how the spirit of teamwork can disintegrate into disagreement and reproach. Perhaps an opening that once seemed agreeable and optimistic is now blocked by petty bickering.
You have learned from bitter experience the kinds of losses such a situation can sustain. Your challenge is to hold to the greater good despite the fact that those around you are floundering. If you don’t know how to steer clear of their conflict, recall negative experiences from the past and try not to repeat them.

Recent Past: King of Swords
Exposure to a person imbued with the spirit and style of true justice is an inspiration to you.
The card in the Recent Past position refers to events that are just departing, recently influential but now diminishing in power.
The King of Swords in this position indicates a fair-minded soul who sorts through things very carefully until he discovers the original facts. His conclusion has taken everything into account. It is a powerful example to witness someone make sense of things from an unbiased and unattached point of view.
It’s even more powerful to realize that you are, or are becoming, such a person. Traditionally, the King of Swords is a judge or a lawyer, and his word becomes law. This king’s integrity and powers of perception are unparalleled, and his or her influence leaves a mind-expanding legacy. You have received an example of an authoritative and trustworthy person’s style of thinking, communicating, and doing business. Increasingly, you are able to translate such examples into your own life here and now.

Higher Power: Ace of Coins
A door is opening to a higher level of function and experience.
The card in the Higher Power position reflects the broader perspective and influence of your conscience, Guardian Angel, inner wisdom.
When the Ace of Coins appears in this position, a door is opening that can lift you closer to your dream. You will become increasingly aware of how meaningful your assignment is.
In a certain way, you have been chosen to hold or carry something of high value, and that thing you hold and invite others to participate in is going to bless those who get involved with you. You are gaining a sense of the larger meaning of your life, and everything looks new and fresh. Take the ball and run with it!

Near Future: Eight of Cups
Become more careful in your choices. Avoid naively opening yourself to unnecessary trauma.
The card in the Near Future position indicates which way the wind is blowing with regard to your situation. If you follow the Advice card, however, you can improve on or neutralize tendencies.
With the Eight of Cups in this position, you will be lucky to get through an upcoming situation without being taken advantage of. Such experiences can be humbling and harm our feelings of security. This may be a tough situation, so keep your eyes open and remain vigilant. It is not a safe environment. For now be less open, less willing to just let things happen to you. Be protective of your boundaries.
If you are about to put yourself in a challenging or unpredictable situation, take full responsibility. Only foresight can provide you any safety. Once you are caught up, rescue is unlikely and you will then be forced to go through it alone. Preparation may be your ally.

Blocks & Inhibitions: Ten of Swords
The card in the Blocks position points to self-undermining tendencies, areas where you could be in denial, where you could get stuck — unless you examine yourself and make some corrections.
With the Ten of Swords in this position, listen to yourself talking with friends and familiars over a twenty-four hour period. Recognize your primary subject matter, tone and slant, because right now you are eating your words. Every sword in this picture is one of your own pronouncements, having comeback to you in the fullness of time. It’s important to understand that what you speak, what you breathe life into, is what you harvest. Remember, your subconscious hears and believes what you say and produces equivalent results. In this moment, you have a chance to become more conscious and start fresh.
Learn to frame your thinking in terms of what you love, are inspired by and are striving toward — rather than what you disagree with, are judging or rejecting. There is nothing inherently wrong with having a setback. This is how we humans learn. The problem arises when you don’t learn from your experience and fail to recover, rebound and move on.

Allies: The Moon
Certain people around you are like psychic litmus paper — they register the slightest change in the environment. Watch them closely for signs that it’s time for you to shift your focus too.
The card in the Allies position points to people who can be supportive or helpful to you at this time.
The Moon in this position suggests that you seek and spend time with the most intuitive people you know. Turn to those who understand transformation, who can lead you into the shamanic depths.
These guides know the territory and how to relate to its strange inhabitants. Associate with those who are tuned in when everyone else is losing focus. A shift is coming that will be challenging to those who do not track the subtle signs.

Advice: Five of Coins
Pooling resources allows you to make bolder moves and larger investments in future projects.
The card in the Advice position suggests a course of action which will harmonize what you want with what is currently possible.
The Five of Coins in this position advises you to create contractual agreements with those around you who have similar interests. In this kind of situation, there is strength in numbers. Put your heads together and devise a bold plan for future objectives and decide how to invest in their success. This Five of Coins recommends teamwork and the mutual benefits a combined effort can yield.
Note: In the English decks, like the Rider-Waite, the sickly poor freezing outside a well-lit church warn of the painful outcomes of bad choices, rather than focusing on the dynamic tension of the choosing itself, as in the traditional Continental decks.

Long-term Potential: Ten of Coins
Realize that you can stop being worried or stressed and then decide how you can use your energy in a positive way.
The card in the Long-term Potential position points to unknowns still taking shape. It is the “wild card” yet to be played.
With the Ten of Coins in this position, the long term potential is that you have a real opportunity in some endeavor or relationship to achieve security and success that’s great enough to be passed on to future generations. You and yours stand to be well taken care of.
Ask yourself what you will do with the energy you no longer squander in fear, worry or stress? What new kind of power does it bring you to have a feeling of security? Share with others how you are doing it. Express your passion in an abundant way.

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This week was a bit of a downer on the weight loss front. I only managed to drop 2 lbs. Not bad I suppose considering this was “that week of the month.” Since several have asked how I’ve managed to drop over 40 lbs since this past February I suppose I’ll fill you in.

I’ve sort of been following the Slim Fast diet plan. When I sort of, I mean that I have to modify the shakes or they taste horrible. Well the Cappuccino one is alright but the rest suck. Shortly after starting on the 2 shakes and a sensible supper plan they came out with the Slim Fast Optima variety which is supposed to help control hunger longer. I have no clue how it does this but it does quiet well. But I still have to bulk up the shakes. I usually keep a can of the French Vanilla powder and a can of the Milk Chocolate powder on hand. I use the 8 oz. of skim milk but then I’ll add frozen fruit or ice into the blender with the milk and powder. Sometimes adding a tablespoon of instant cappuccino mix makes it a really heavenly treat. When I get hungry during the day I usually make some popcorn. But not the microwave variety. I want to control the amount of sodium and fat that goes into it so I pop it in a pan on the stove and it’s generally the afternoon snack for all of the boys and myself with them eating far more of it than I do.

When I first started on the Slim Fast plan, I had a lot of people snicker and tell me, “Oh boy, you’re going to be running to the bathroom a lot!” But as a person who’s lived with severe IBS for the last 20 years, this diet seems to have done a great deal to keep that under control. I think it’s because I’m finally getting the dietary requirements that I need and my body isn’t having to struggle to digest what it’s taking in. That and lots of water. As an added bonus, my blood pressure, while it still tends to go sky high during moments of intense stress, has stabilized to a reasonable  123/76 which any medical professional will tell you is outstanding for a person with diastolic heart failure. Even my pulse has settled down to the low 90’s and upper 80’s. I attribute that to medication changes, though.

So there you have it. That’s how I’m doing it and it seems to be working.

Not only is the living room now void of all furniture, it is also completely void of carpet. The property manager chose a lovely dark walnut shade of floating vinyl linoleum. It’s a wide plank look so it will go perfectly with the decor we have going on. Dark and cool in the summer and a warm feel in the winter. Not that it ever gets cold enough to actually need heat more than a couple of months out of the year here.

Supposedly the living room will be done today and the carpet will be removed from the stairs and the upstairs hallway. Tomorrow the stairs will be rebuilt and the Berber carpet laid on the stairs and upstairs hallway and the exhaust fan installed in the bathroom. After that he won’t be back until Tuesday and thinks he’ll be able to get both bedrooms done that day. I don’t think he’ll be able to get it done in one day and it’s cutting it very close. But if he gets one room done it will be the master bedroom. Upon hearing the plan I let Joseph know so he could schedule that day off to help with the furniture in our room. He has a circa mid 80’s government issue metal and laminated monstrosity of a desk that easily weighs 300 lbs. There is no way I can help move that thing. Heck, after the last moving of furniture to help with the painting there is no way I’m going to attempt to move a single thing. That resulted in a 3 week Fibromyalgia flare-up from hell.

But all of this is being cut very close to the call. My mother and Boy #1 fly in next Thursday. It had all better be done by then. So much to do so little time and so little out of my hands. Sucks to be a control freak!