Just a post

I have a new piano student starting next week. She has Asperger's Syndrome, which is on the Autism Spectrum. Her mom said that she loves playing around on the piano and making up songs. Aspgerber's is a very high functioning form of Autism. Most people who have it might never realize they have it. Some of the symptoms can seem to be just the person being unaware: social awkwardness, inability to perceive "subtle" hints(like not realizing someone is annoyed by them or bored of listening to an long explanation), abnormal ability to focus on one thing, extreme trust and loyalty(whether misplaced or not), excessive emotion, or almost no emotion. There are lots of others, but those are the ones I know of fairly well. I have been around some people with autism and some people with Asperger's. We are going to do 20 minute lessons to start out and see how that goes. She is almost 7 and I think that since my philosophy is to teach based on the individual I might be able to help her.

In other news... Loren is still looking for a new job. It's not "hiring season" for what he is looking for right now so it's kind of stressful. He has applied a few places and had only one promising possibility. They told him he was second on the list and they didn't know how many people they could hire yet. Turns out their HR department said they could only hire one for the position. That was a bummer. They are going to hold onto his resume though and let us know if another position becomes available. The rest have all been... odd, for lack of a better word. One of them, they didn't seem to know what they were doing. Another one seems like a very strange company. And that's about all we've been able to find. I think there might have been one or two more, but Loren didn't even want to interview for them. He knows what his market value is and is hoping to find something close to that. The funny thing is that if we were in another state that didn't have so many QA/Developer jobs his value would be much higher. But, we are here and there's no sense worrying about other states.

We really enjoyed Landon and Janell visiting us from Germany where Landon is serving in the Air Force a little while back. We wished we could have spent more time with them, but they had a very limited time to get a lot done. We were able to spend an evening together and talk about all kinds of things. Jonathon is such an energetic boy! I loved seeing how happy he was! Erik is such a cutie! Ethan looks like a sumo wrestler next to him(ok, that's an exaggeration), but they are both happy and healthy. Janell and I got to talk about Germany and lots of other things. Landon and Loren ended the night having a discussion about Super Hero's. I'm not sure how they got on that, but they sounded like they were having fun!

My maternal grandma took us all out to eat at Ottavio's on Wednesday night. The food was delicious! She and her sister Gleah(sp?) came down for Education Week at BYU. We talked about all kinds of things and had a good visit. They had a lot going on this week, but we appreciated that they came to see us and Ethan. Ethan is the first great-grandchild for my mom's parents. He is the second for my dad's parents. Thank you so much for the meal!

Oh! I almost forgot! I have to thank Cassandra (Cordova) VanSlyke for inspiring me! I picked up on the FLYlady program shortly after she posted a picture of her shiny sink and I have been loving it! I was doing the classic "clean everything spotless, then be too burnt out to maintain it." I always knew I should do it in pieces but it just didn't happen. They send little reminders in my email every day and it covers every area in the house. I don't have to wonder what I'm going to work on and feel overwhelmed. I just do whatever she says to clean and don't worry about anything else. I am almost always caught up! I do need to vacuum and sweep today. I am going to dust too, but it isn't very bad. It's so nice to have a consistently clean house! Granted, when Loren leaves a drawer open, all the contents end up on the floor thanks to Ethan, but that's so simple to pick up that it doesn't bother me at all!

I don't think much else is going on. I have a church activity tonight. There is a Father's and Son's camping trip and the RS is meeting at the church. Loren isn't going on the camping trip, but I'm sure he'll enjoy the time to talk to Laren and unwind. I picked up the book for book club from the library yesterday and I have read about three pages so far. I knew it was a dumb question, but I asked if they had copies of "The Host". Of course they didn't. I'll have to see if I can borrow it from someone or I might just have to use my play money to buy it. A little bit of my lesson money each month is play money so we can still do some things that cost money for date nights. I also get to use it to get extras for Ethan and myself. I have gotten a few things for Loren, but he gets to go to so many cool places to eat for work that he usually says he is content with that.

Tomorrow is the first Saturday for a long time that Loren doesn't have to work so we are hoping to do something fun. I have no idea what, especially if it is so hot again. We might go miniature golfing or something, but we'll have to see. Usually when we have a free day we try not to watch movies, and I don't think anything new has come out that we really want to see. I think the Veteran's pool is closed now but we might find somewhere to go swimming. I have an aversion to swimming(maybe too many days at the pool lifeguarding in High School?) so I usually try to stay away from it. I have lost enough weight now though that I don't mind being in a swim suit! I weigh over 25 pounds less than I did before I got pregnant! Now, before anyone says they are jealous, I spent 9 months in absolute misery and starvation to get a good bit of that off. Pregnancy and I have a love hate relationship. At least so far. The only thing I loved about it was that I got an incredible prize at the end! Losing weight was an alright compensation for the sickness, but I still am petrified of getting pregnant again! (Disclaimer: No, we are NOT planning anything in the near future! That is not why I'm talking about pregnancy!)

Well, no pictures, but there is a humongous post for anyone who wants to actually read it. lol, I probably wouldn't want to wade through it! Hope everyone is doing fantabulously and enjoying life! Ethan is getting into my purse and there is nothing dangerous in there, but I'd better kaibosh it pretty soon. I fear for my purse!