Living with Autism

Noooo! I am not admitting I am powerless. But I will extract what I need from Step One in two ways.

The first, is to admit, to allow yourself to believe that nothing you did caused your child's diagnosis to happen. That you had no power to stop it.
Yes there are birth related disabilities caused by drug abuse, alcohol abuse or smoking heavily while pregnant resulting in a lower birth weight and reduced learning ability. But we are not talking about those.

The first stage of hearing of a diagnosis is the flood of guilt and fear that maybe something you did brought it about. And if you were foolish enough to read "What to expect when you're expecting" while you were pregnant, then you are going to be easily convinced that the odd glass of wine, the donuts, the cold tablet you took when you had the flu' all brought about your child's disability. Either that or all the "empty calories" you ate while trying to stuff down the reflux you experienced between w…

More than once on this blog, I have referred to the 12 steps used by people recovering from an addiction.
Now, truth be told, I have never actually been to a meeting, or even read a book about the program.
(not that there's anything wrong with that)
Nope, as is the case with most of the grey mush of trivia that make up my mental hard drive; what I do know I got from American Television shows like Seinfeld, Friends, SATC and The Simpsons, (a little bit) and biographical books.
So while my knowledge is sketchy at best, the bits I knew seemed to fit with what I have experienced as a parent of children with a disability, in my case autism.
Okay, straight away I can see the differences. We didn't choose to have kids with special needs, whereas the addict supposedly chooses to indulge their addiction.
But perhaps I can make this analogy; when you consider that some people can take a drink and only have the one, some people can buy a lotto ticket, or put a few coins in a slot machine an…

The gorgeous Sal of Already Pretty gave me this very pretty award this week;

For which I feel truly blessed and honored. Thankyou Gorgeous.
Of course, by the time I sat down tonight to read my daily blogs a lot of the people I was planning to pass this on to had either just received it; or already had it displayed in the awards cabinet of their margins.So I had a little think, and decided that these awards have to start somewhere, Why not with me?Why not create my own little Blogies?(to rhyme with Logies or, if you are from anywhere other than Australia - Yogies) to hand out As and when I felt like it; with no particular rules. And to honor the lady, the missionary of self esteem and soldier of making the most of your good fortune; who actually inspired me to take this picture a few Sundays ago;I have created...
For Beautiful thoughts, Beautiful words, beautiful pictures. Making the most of your own beauty, whatever your "day job" or background. Finding beauty in the world. M…

In my last post I screwed up my courage and put up a photo of myself circa 1985. It didn't make the first edit, I snuck it in later after a few of you had already commented.

I got some lovely responses thank you, not least from Mr Hammie who read your comments and then said:"they're right; you were a beautiful girl".

Here's Another

Don't panic, he qualified it with the obligatory-for-marital-relations: "still are"
And I had to answer, "Wow, I had no idea".
At the time the photo was taken I was completely unaware. There were girls at school who were much thinner than me. They had better clothes, better "rich girl" hair, they got nicely tanned in the first rays of springtime and looked better in short summer uniforms. (it was the 80's, we put baby oil on our legs and TRIED to tan in those days)
They most certainly always looked better at the swimming carnival and filled out their bikinis a lot more capably than I did. And a lot of …

When I was growing up in the Seventies; my big sister and I used to play with my Mum's two wigs. She wasn't bald. Apparently it was fashionable once to have totally different hair from day to day. (!?!?)

One of the wigs looked a bit like Krystal Carrington hair, from Dynasty, or, if you wore it round the wrong way, which we did; like Farrah Fawcett in Charlies Angels.


The other was a short brunette Pob, like this one ------------------>


You see, this is supposed to be my 99th Post, but fool that I am I didn't realise that the 15 or so drafts that I never finished counted towards the total and I'm still a good few posts from my century.
Never mind. I got to thinking about "99" anyway and was reminded of the gorgeous Barbara Feldon who I now realise, was one of my first style icons.

She always looked so immaculate beside the goofy Max in Get Smart (for those of you who didn't grow up on a diet of American sitcoms) And her outfits probably represented the …

I am approaching my 100thPostday and have been doing a bit of blog housekeeping, adding a few gadgets and such. I find I need to pass on a couple of awards I have collected recently from my blog buds Seeker and Skylark:



Seeker gave me the "sense" of the award, it means Closeness, to bring us all closer. And how appropriate that I should receive it twice within a couple of days, from not just opposite sides of the world, but opposite oceans (Pacific and Atlantic) and opposite hemispheres.
Skylark and Seeker are both fashion bloggers, one is pulling out her summery frocks and enjoying an early warm spring, and the other is looking forward to wearing the gorgeous autumn wardrobe she acquired on a recent trip to the mainland.
They also share an ability to philosophise and for me they are a daily read.
Seeker also gave me this award: A girls best friend indeed!Now I have to pass on my butterflies and jewels to these lovely blogs, who can pass it on to some more. And yes, some of y…

This delightful fellow comes to me from my blog sister and guardian angel, Sister Wolf, who, on a recent trip to San Francisco, scoured the alleys of China town for me to find these treasures.





Can you tell what they are?



Yup, Kid's Chopsticks. The little silicone man on top holds the choppies at the right width to allow a little hand to pick up, in this case noodles, like a big pair of tweezers. Genius huh?The chopsticks are slightly smaller than usual so the balance between the squeezing end and the picking up end is perfect.You see, we eat a lot of noodles and such in our family and while Mr Hammie and I are pretty adept, it hasn't been easy to teach The Boo. The way I learned to use choppies (as described on the Teppen Yaki Chopstick Packet) was with a pencil grip for the first one, (if you have a pair practice holding one and writing your name now) and then sliding the other one under that; to sit firmly against the base of your pointer finger knuckle,and the end of your ri…