Top 10 Tips for a Distraction Free Vacation!

We absolutely love to camp. It's our favorite family vacation. It's inexpensive and very low key. We love to "check out" from modern life for awhile. Last summer, we had the ultimate vacation travel experience driving from Alabama to Washington and Oregon and back again. It was an absolutely amazing trip.

Spring Break is next month and we're trying to find the perfect camping spot here in Alabama. We haven't actually been camping here yet, so it's exciting. We're leaning towards Gulf State Park.

Alamo is asking moms what their best tips for fun, distraction-free vacation. They're offering gas cards to bloggers! Our trip last summer taught us more than a few things:

1. Disposable Cameras are still a great investment! When we arrived at Yellowstone, we gave each of the children a disposable camera. They could take as many pictures of whatever they wanted. It kept them from fighting over our cameras.

2. Create Traditions Whenever we go to a new state, we find the Welcome To sign and take a family picture in front of it. This helps to document where we went and when. My 8 year old also decided he wanted to collect road maps from each state we visited. He has a pretty large collection now!

3. Lunch Bags At the start of each travel day, we packed a lunch bag with snacks. This prevented us from stopping for snacks. It also saved money because we weren't buying all sorts of extras at the gas station.

4. Have TWO itineraries We had excellent plans on our vacation. We travel quite a bit with the kids and we knew how far they could travel in one day. What we didn't plan for immediately, was what would happen when kids got sick. On our return trip we had best case travel and worst case travel plans!

5. Eat at the Grocery Store! Many grocery stores have deli counters and ready made foods. We planned to eat this way, again to save money. We did not want to eat fast food every single night. Sandwiches, breakfast items and delicious dinners! It was just as fast to run into the store to pick up supplies and meals each night.

6. Prioritize activities One of the things I hate most about vacations is feeling like you need a vacation once you get back. Decide what things you absolutely must do and what things you can skip. For us, Yellowstone was a must see. Grand Canyon, not as much. So we completely changed our return trip plans at the last minute. We ended up having an amazing time as we decided to stop in Nauvoo, Illinois, instead!

7. Red Box I swear Red Box saved our sanity. If you haven't tried Red Box, then you are really missing out. We rented movies in Kansas and returned them in Utah. It let the kids watch a variety of movies and we didn't get sick of the same ones over and over. Plus, we could return them anywhere in the country!

8. Assignments As much as the kids hated it, we had to assign seats. It minimized fighting. We also gave daily assignments such as who was lunch helper, official sign spotter, etc. It kept things interesting and stops fighting. That's worth mentioning twice.

9. Driving Games There are so many resources for fun car trip games. We loved the license plate game. Since we traveled so far, we were able to find 49 states! We only missed out on Rhode Island! We also got most of the Canadian provinces. My kids decided to play "who can get the most variety of road kill." That one was more to keep the older ones occupied.

10. Just Have Fun! My husband has a tendency to freak out over all the little details. He wants everything to run like a well oiled machine. And it doesn't...not when you have six kids! You just have to find the humor in everything and not sweat the small stuff. The schedule isn't nearly as important as the time spent together.

We are planning another big road trip! In 2012, we are driving back west again, this time stopping in Colorado for my high school reunion. And, we're going to hit the Grand Canyon this time and head back up to Oregon and Washington. I want to do a bigger loop and stop at Mt. Rushmore on the way home.

Life with Aspergers

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It's hard having a kid with a disability people can't see. On the surface, Alex looks like a very normal kid. He has a wonderful memory for facts, so he does well on tests and spitting back information. Actually using that information and drawing conclusions or doing more than one step in a row...not so good.

Thursday, my HUSBAND, commented in a very amazed voice that "Your SON" (and why is it always MY son LOL) "YOUR SON doesn't know how to follow a conversation" and I'm thinking "you've lived with him for the last nearly 13 years and you're JUST figuring this out?" I guess he thought Alex was always just being goofy. But today, D was talking to Alex's "girl friend" and another friend at lunch about car accidents. Alex pipes in with "What's the best kind of donut?"

Friday, Alex was so oblivious to what needed to happen he was hit with a door FIVE times as people were coming in to the cafeteria. Each person asked him to move more than once before they just opened the door. More than one adult was involved in convincing him he needed to move out of the doorway so people could get in. And the louder the kids laughed at him getting hit, the less inclined he was to move. He thought he was being funny.
He really does not get it.

Compared to many children with autism spectrum issues, Alex isn't "that bad" but my gosh, we've worked so stinking hard to get to this point! And people don't see the "dealing with this every day" side. they just see the public face...the one we've trained our kids to put on so we can work somewhat within the framework of society.

Legal issues, schools and cars...oh my!

It's weeks like these that I am amazed that I am able to stay sane. I don't get too personal on this blog very often, but this time the news is important enough to my family and close friends who read the blog that it's worth it.

I haven't posted much at all about The Incident, other than vague references. Long story short, D was the victim of a crime and for the last almost 10 months, we've been dealing with the repercussions emotionally (with Alex), financially (lost wages) and stress of how long things were being drawn out. The accused was supposed to have a plea date while we were on our vacation and we never heard what happened. No one would return our calls. Nothing. Then a few weeks ago, D got a letter from the DA stating there was a hearing! Needless to say, D was there! As it turned out, the person had gone on the run and was finally caught. He entered a plea of no contest. That means he couldn't refute the video taped evidence but didn't feel he did anything wrong. In the end, he was given probation despite objections and ordered to pay restitution. Supposedly we'll start receiving that next month. I'll believe it when I see it!

Our lives have also been caught in the whirlwind with Alex. We finally received testing through the school for his Asperger's Syndrome. It's hard to get special education testing when your child is doing well academically. But when that same child is so far behind his peers socially, in a junior high setting, things change. Even though we had a diagnosis from a real doctor, it wasn't enough for the schools. This is when it's a good thing you homeschool and put your child back in to school. We had testing started immediately and wouldn't you know it, Alex is definitely no question about it, on the autism spectrum and qualifies for services. A score of 10 or better is needed on the testing and Alex came in at a 16. We've been attending meetings about services for him, too!

We've also requested testing be started for Ben. We don't suspect autism issues at all, but there's something going on that we can't identify. Ben took quite the fall when he was about 15 months old and we were told there could be some issues that crop up as he gets older. We were hoping the issues were related to his speech, but he's really struggling in school and we want to make sure there's not something else we're missing. He's a really good kid and it's hard to see him struggle. I know D really identifies with how Ben feels. D's older brother was an excellent student and D claims that his parents prefer D3. Of course, everyone else says S was the favorite (*hi!!! I know you're reading this*) But D was so incredibly traumatized by following after D3 that he was never given a fair shot at doing well in school. He could never be as smart as D3, as big as D2, or as handsome as D1, and D5 was the youngest and a girl...so there was no competing with that, either, and S is favorite because she's the only one with a name that doesn't start with a D! (Ok, family you should all be in fits of giggles because you KNOW how he talks ha ha) Anyway, D thinks Ben may be having middle child/following the "special" kids issues and is choosing to get attention in a way that's completely different from the other two.

And in all of this, D's car broke down. We're down to one car. We have a great mechanic who said it should be done some time today. As icing on the cake, this morning MY car wouldn't start. There's a short and it causes the battery to drain. D found someone to give us a jump. So, D has to change the oil, fix the brake switch and pull apart the door and fix the short there, too.

All of this has allowed me so much extra time the last two weeks LOL

Organization Challenge!

Org Junkie is sponsoring an organization challenge. I'm all about getting excited about things and then losing interest in it, so we're going to *try* to do the challenge this month.

We're supposed to take before and after pictures. But I'm really embarrassed by my lack of organizational skills, so we're going to skip the big room and focus on my laundry room and the front closet. I will post pictures of those once I figure out the materials I'm going to need to organize it.

I am promise myself I am going to follow through with this. (ok you can stop laughing now!) I really am...


OK...we're gonna tackle the front closet first. We are always very careful about opening the doors. Not because we're afraid everything is going to fall down...this is another one of those neglected projects. The track for the closet is broken and the doors themselves tend to fall off.

Menu Plan Monday Feb 1!

I can't believe it's February already! January wasn't a good month so I'm really glad it's over. And over the last few days, we've been crazy busy and ate out a lot. We ate out so much the kids begged me not to make pizza again for awhile LOL

This week's menu should be interesting. We are settling back down in our schedules so I'm hoping for more time to cook. We're trying several new recipes from Melissa D'arabian from Food Network's $10 dinners. It's a good show. She's very frugal, and I like that. I made her Fool Proof Popovers last week and they were a real hit. D thought they needed some more flavor so we're going to make them a bit more exciting next time with some cheese and green onions. But it's a good basic popover recipe and that's what counts!

Monday: Chicken Curry
Tuesday: Sausage, Potatoes and Perogis
Wednesday: quick and easy: BLTs, tater tots
Thursday: chicken l'orange
Friday: Spaghetti
Saturday: Herb Crusted Pork loin and some sauteed cabbage and apples
Sunday: Game Day food! Open faced Quessadillas, chips and salsa, maybe some fondue

Organization Insanity

Life around here is a constant state of chaos. It's an ongoing battle between me, the kids and their stuff. With my ADD issues, I'm usually losing. I mean, consider my last post where I was minutes away from buying something I already had because I forgot I had it! This is how I end up with so much ... junk.

I keep trying to find ways to keep up with things. I've done flylady...or at least tried. I've found that the flylady technique doesn't work well if you have ADD. The reminders represent a constant shift of focus. I don't transition well and I don't leave one activity to move on to another very well. It really represented more stress. And with the impulsiveness that leads me to purchase things I don't need, it also leads me to get rid of things I don't necessarily need to get rid of.

What has worked best is to designate a place and date and have a sufficient amount of time to start the task and finish it. Start to finish. If I finish it, I feel able to move on to the next task mentality.

Going into a room and cleaning for 5 minutes is the worst thing for me! I need time to prioritize and decide what to do. I could spend 5 minutes just deciding which part of a room to tackle.

So here are my best tips for getting things organized when you are distractable:

1. Decide what you want to accomplish: Are you just in it to tidy? Organization? Purging?
2. How much time do plan to dedicate?
3. Determine the place best suited for the amount of time. Then, move to the spot you think won't take all that long. You'll end up spending more time than you planned!
4. Get three bags: Keep, Trash, Donate
5. Touch it once and make the decision of where to put it
6. Don't move from the area until it's done.
7. Take the Trash to the trash.
8. Take the donate to your car right then and drive it to the thrift store!
   
9. In the keep bag, decide best how to store the items. Do they belong in another room? Will a basket work?
10. Put the keep items away

I know it sounds so basic. But it isn't. At least not for me. The trash bag usually makes it out to the trash. The donate bag, however, sits in the room and gets knocked over. And it stays there until I am sick of it then I move it to my van. There it remains until the back of the van is too full to have the donate items and groceries. THEN I finally get rid of it.

I've been working on my fabric stash. I consolidated a nice portion of it. But the things that were with my sewing that didn't belong there have just been moved to another spot they don't belong so I could at least finish the sewing. The good news, this time at least, is the donate pile has already been taken care of. I think D wanted the fabric out of the house before I had a chance to change my mind!

My next project is to go through the mending and seasonal clothes. I am hoping to finish that this week. After that, we go after the girls' room...again.

Scratch that...better be frugal

After my last post about building those shelves, I had actually managed to convince my husband to build them with me! I was really excited. A nice fun, couples project!

As we were driving to do some shopping today, D asked a very important question: Why did I want to build bookshelves out of MDF when I have two gorgeous Brazilian pine bookshelves sitting in the shed?

*silence*

Ummm

The answer to that would be: I forgot I had them!

Several years ago, I picked up these two beautiful bookshelves at a yard sale for $20. It was an amazing find. The only problem was the scale. With the giant entertainment center, we just didn't have the room for these bookcases. They were relegated into storage...and there they've sat for the last three years.

So, we're going to use what we have and put my pretty bookcase up in the living room and mount the TV on the wall.

I did pick up a closetmaid cubical thing at Target today for less than I would pay to make the bookshelves. Those cubies are going in our bedroom to hold my fabric.

I guess the big moral in this is make sure you go through your storage to make sure you don't have something that will work before you start on a project! I'm really glad D remembered. I am such a ditz lately. LOL