Update

This is the Weekend Of The Crazy.  Andrew's done with spring semester except for one final on Monday.  Prom is this weekend, so that means Maggie & Andrew at a party last night, Bryce here for the weekend, and Andrew at the dance tonight.

Katie and family moved this week, and I have done nothing to help.  Well, ... other than watch the girls on Thursday.  That was a fun day.

Maggie worked at the fish fry at church last night, attended the concert, spent the night with Olivia, and helped with church's clean-up day this morning.

Gary substitute preaches at one church tonight and at a different church tomorrow (both a 40-minute drive away).

It's museum-swap weekend, which means we can get in free to a museum we want to visit but don't have a museum membership for.  We really should go.  I really want to go.  But I don't function well when I try to squeeze in too many activities.

Monday Maggie and I are set up to visit the local high school, just to get a feel for it, in case we find their IEP* offer sounds like it would be necessary.

I need to go dig in the garden so the tomatoes can get started on their growing.  (But there's schoolwork, and housecleaning, and goofing off on the computer....)




*IEP = Individualized Educational Program

Interactions with the School

So I've been trying to ask for a few years what the special-ed program at our local public school is like.  They wouldn't talk to me until we had Maggie evaluated.  Okay, so when I tried to make an appointment this spring for an evaluation, they first told me they couldn't even evaluate her until I enrolled her.  After my spending hours of reading statues and regulations and preparing to show them what their legal duty was, they figured it out on their own that I was right.  So we began to set up the evaluation.

Now I know why there are legal time limits on how soon the school is required to get this finished. 

It was weeks before I heard back after they mailed the letter saying there would be an evaluation.  I had to call them several times, asking why I hadn't heard from them.  (And if you know me, you know that I always wait too long, always give people the benefit of the doubt for their pokey response-times.)  Now I'm trying to make an appointment for a tour of the school.  And nobody is responding to my phone calls. 

If this is the kind of response (or lack of response!) I'm getting as a school-shopper, what kind of response will I get once we've decided to enroll a kid?  Don't salesmen usually put on their best behavior, their quickest response times, their nicest charms, when they're trying to gain a customer?

Lars and the Real Girl

Upon the recommendations of several people, we put Lars and the Real Girl onto our Netflix queue.  Because of the plot description, however, we kept bumping it further down the queue.  We'd watch movies, and over time, Lars would climb back to the top of the list.  Then we'd send it back down to #50 or so.  That happened several times.

Last week the movie arrived in the mailbox.  Oops.  Our list-monitoring slipped through our fingers there for a couple of weeks.  So we went ahead and watched the movie.

Oh. My. Goodness.

It was the best thing I've seen in ages.  It is NOT what you expect, given the premise.  I want so badly to muse upon the story here, but it's the kind of movie that I don't want to ruin for anyone.  (How often do you watch a movie that you honestly have no idea where they're going to go with it?)

It's a movie about love.  It's a movie about mental illness.  It's a movie about family.  One person described it as warm and funny and yet painful.  Yes.  It's sweet in so many ways!

Devotional Materials versus The Bible

Maybe you've heard it too.  In my past, authorities would often say that we should focus on the Bible.  They didn't say it was wrong to use devotional writings, but that the Bible was what was important.   And they've certainly got a point.

But if Jesus says that it's important not only that He suffer, die, and rise again, but also that this be preached (Luke 24), maybe that's part of the point of devotional writings.   For example, there are sections of Luther in his Galatians commentary, or pages of Day by Day, which are sweet as can be!  And these passages take Scripture and expound upon it, driving home the "for you" nature of what's in the Bible. 

These writings aren't "versus" Bible-reading, no matter what that Sunday School teacher told me way-back-when.

Stuffed Brain

Writing helps me think.  Writing helps me solve problems.  Writing helps me wind down. Writing helps keep me sane.  (Or at least helps me fake sanity.)

My blogging recently has been shallow.  There are all sorts of topics I want to write about, but they would take time.  It doesn't take long to write, but it does take time to think things through before writing them.  And I don't have time to think these days.  (No time to think?  Gasp!)  And then ideas sit in my mind, piling up, befuddling me, being jumbled with other piles-of-ideas.  And it all leaves my blog in a boring state, t'boot.

Y'know how you feel so much better after you've cleared the kitchen counters, or cleaned the bedroom, or organized that closet?  Getting rid of clutter feels great!  Well, I could use a week with no responsibilities except for straightening out my brain. After all, clutter there needs to be thinned and put in order too.