Crazy Life

Well, things have been pretty crazy around our house this summer and fall. We  moved the first week of June back to town and well we really enjoyed getting out of Gerton. It was simply too far from everything. We save nearly $400 a month in gas for our vehicle. We are saving so much money on gas we have been able to purchase a new car. We had to buy one in March, on my birthday actually and now we have a second car, new to us, a 2009. It is nice to look out at our driveway and see two nice vehicles that are not subjected to rough mountain driving of 30 minutes twice a day. We think they will last quite a bit longer than the van and SUV that died from the mountain driving stress within less than a year of living in Gerton. It is a beautiful area, but horrible on vehicles.

The house was moldy and damp and since moving from there, I have been able to cut out quite a bit of my allergy medicine. Amazing what a mold free home can do for one's overall health and wallet.

My husband had a job interview the day before we packed up our belongings on a moving truck and the day we were unloading things in our new house he received a call back for a second interview. He quickly showered and headed over for the interview while my son unloaded the truck and I continued unpacking the boxes. My husband arrived home and received a second call later that day offering him the job. Good thing too, the company he had been with since we moved here nearly 9 years ago was closing up shop with the exception of maybe one or two days a month.

If you read the blog in late June/early July you will see some mention of the harassment from our former neighbors. That took up some time to deal with, but as you will see,  while they believed they were having fun spewing hate to me and my family via the internet (twitter and my blog mainly) they were breaking the law. I found out what legal steps I can take to stop this type of treatment and gave them one last warning to stop it or pay the consequences for their actions and well, I am pleased to say they have stopped. I guess they decided to attempt to make our lives a living nightmare because we did not like them. I have to say my gut instinct told me they were bad news and it appears I was right. Who does that type of stuff to someone just because their neighbor does not like them enough to be 'friends'? I say, grow up and leave me alone!

Senior pictures time came and while I did not get my son to take as many pictures as I wanted, the ones he took are simply wonderful. They really captured the many sides of my son.

School started back up and my baby is a senior in high school. He is the senior class president, an officer in FCA, and involved in a number of school activities, a member of the National Honor Society, and is 7th or 9th in his class. So, can you say 'proud mom'? I am so proud of the wonderful young many he is.

Our oldest son is in his third year of college, purchased a car completely on his own, and working for Americans for Prosperity. He is meeting some great politicians and enjoying the opportunities he has been given. He is another young man with a lot of potential and I am very proud of him!

Our youngest son has sent in some college applications this weekend. I am excited for him and I hope he gets in to NC State as that is the school he wants to attend the most. Yes, mom is sad that it is so far away from home and makes a day trip to see him difficult. However, it may turn into a weekend trip one day in Charlotte and the next in Raleigh to see both boys. However, our oldest has intentions of attending NC State for his master's degree  and well, that will make road trips to see the boys easier on mom and dad.

I have been selected for quite a few try and tells from several companies, bzzagent, shespeaks, vocalpoint, inflenster, and more over the summer and fall. I am excited about the opportunities to try some great new products and I am attempting to regularly update the blog on these products. I have to admit that my freelance writing projects have taken off this last year and I have been so very busy doing them. Since they bring in money for the family, I give them priority but, I still love to be involved in try and tells on products.

I am beginning a weight loss trial program later this month. I am planning on updating the progress I make on this blog. It will be a year commitment to the weight loss program and I expect to see some remarkable results. This is a doctor, dietitian, and nurse monitored program. There is a chance for a 'device' to assist in the weight loss but I won't know if I have the 'device' or not until well into the program. I will not divulge what the 'device' is but there is no surgery involved. The program focuses on diet and exercise in addition to the device if you are chosen for the device. It sounds complicated and mysterious, but there is a reason for the vagueness of the details. The emphasis is if a person can lose more weight following diet, exercise, and portion control or if the device provides more weight loss. Anyways, I will be updating the blog about this process and hopefully I will see some amazing results.

Taking care of the written word,
dannielyn 

Truth in Autism Must Come First

Someone tweeted a link to a CNN article that discussed a Doctor who lost his ability to practice medicine because he was found to purposely mislead millions of individuals.  These individuals are parents who were under the belief that vaccinations were a cause of autism in some children.  These parents chose not to vaccinate their children out of fear that their children would have been exposed to autism or that autism already present in at least one child would be the cause of autism in the other children.

The fear of a child being diagnosed with autism is very real for families.  I worked in the field of social work and have had families with 2 to 3 children (in both cases it was all of their children) with autism.  These children appeared normal according to their developmental stages until suddenly around two years old the signs and symptoms of autism began to take over their child's development.  To determine that their children are in this type of situation because of vaccinations when it in fact does not have anything to do with the onset of autism puts those children in additional risk of contracting another disease that is completely preventable.

A child with autism and not fully immunized can come down with mumps, measles, rubella and other diseases that are completely preventable and suffer even more than their autism.  Blindness, deafness, heart diseases and becoming paralyzed are only a few of the problems that can come about when they are not immunized.

A child's life is already fragile when they are in their infancy.  All parents want to protect their child from harm and certainly do not want to inflict unnecessary harm on their children.  That is why when the announcement came out that children were developing autism due to immunizations parents questioned whether they should have their children immunized only to put their children at greater risk.  Then to find out that the physician who made this statement had no business making those statements nor had done tests that could be repeated with the same results by a large number of other researchers is atrocious.  This physician should lose more than simply his license.  He should be legally and financially responsible for the children who have suffered from a preventable illness due to the fear of vaccination.  This certainly should not be the last word on this subject.

Too many were duped by someone they believed had the answers as to why their child who should have been "normal" now had autism.  He needs to have a stronger punishment to fit this crime. To read the article in full click on the posting for May 25, 2010.

taking care of the written word,

dannielyn