Hello Old Friends!
- Thread starter hexemaus2
- Start date
Linda, LDM, Marg! Oh how wonderful to see all of you! 
Linda, I don't know about the wisdom part, but I always have 2 cents to put in somewhere. Whether or not my mental spare change is of any use, well, that's a whole 'nother story. lol
LDM, wow, yeah, difficult child 1's stint in public school was a short-lived nightmare. Shudder. It still gives me the willies to think about it. difficult child 2 also tried out public high school. The sheer number of kids freaked him out, even with modifications that allowed him to leave class 5 minutes before the bell so as to avoid the crowded halls, trying half days, etc. It was a no-go for him. We've opted instead to have the boys finish up their hs studies, take their graduation exam, and move on to college classes. We have a branch of the tech college just a mile up the road from us, so both the boys are going to take up classes. difficult child 2 wants to get ASE certified so he can work on cars while he goes to college for something else. difficult child 3 wants to take vet technician classes to see if going to full fledged vet school is what he really wants to do for a living. Having a farm, I'm thinking having an ASE certified mechanic AND a vet in the family sounds really good. They're both considering the ability to build facilities on the property and have their own businesses, if they decide to stay here on the farm. Gotta love that! (Naturally, they'd build their own houses on a separate part of the property - I love my kids too much to want to live with them forever. lol)
Marg, how wonderful that you now have time to pursue your writing! There is no way I could have done it when all the kids were home. (easy child moved back home with us shortly after she graduated from high school. It was wonderful, but 4 teenagers and all their associated friends coming and going made for NO quiet time.) My career shift even helped us find difficult child 2's hidden talent for creative writing. He's happy that now we seem to have something in common. I can't imagine trying to do what I do when we were at the height of his gfgness. Shudder. Congrats on such a well-received pitch, by the way! I'm working on one of two manuscripts - both nonfiction. One I plan to finish and have ready for self-publication this Spring. The other I hope to pitch to a traditional royalty publisher in a year or so. I'll make more money with the niche self-published title, but there's just something about landing a royalty publisher. It's a badge of honor moreso than a lucrative payout. Although, a friend of mine who's daughter is an accomplished artist (with high functioning Autism) published a book last year through a traditional publisher and is doing quite well. She went through a publisher who deals solely in autism-related books.
Fran, you never know...Coookie could pop up, just like I did. I can't eat an oreo cookie without thinking of her. lol.
Linda, I don't know about the wisdom part, but I always have 2 cents to put in somewhere. Whether or not my mental spare change is of any use, well, that's a whole 'nother story. lol
LDM, wow, yeah, difficult child 1's stint in public school was a short-lived nightmare. Shudder. It still gives me the willies to think about it. difficult child 2 also tried out public high school. The sheer number of kids freaked him out, even with modifications that allowed him to leave class 5 minutes before the bell so as to avoid the crowded halls, trying half days, etc. It was a no-go for him. We've opted instead to have the boys finish up their hs studies, take their graduation exam, and move on to college classes. We have a branch of the tech college just a mile up the road from us, so both the boys are going to take up classes. difficult child 2 wants to get ASE certified so he can work on cars while he goes to college for something else. difficult child 3 wants to take vet technician classes to see if going to full fledged vet school is what he really wants to do for a living. Having a farm, I'm thinking having an ASE certified mechanic AND a vet in the family sounds really good. They're both considering the ability to build facilities on the property and have their own businesses, if they decide to stay here on the farm. Gotta love that!
(Naturally, they'd build their own houses on a separate part of the property - I love my kids too much to want to live with them forever. lol)Marg, how wonderful that you now have time to pursue your writing! There is no way I could have done it when all the kids were home. (easy child moved back home with us shortly after she graduated from high school. It was wonderful, but 4 teenagers and all their associated friends coming and going made for NO quiet time.) My career shift even helped us find difficult child 2's hidden talent for creative writing. He's happy that now we seem to have something in common. I can't imagine trying to do what I do when we were at the height of his gfgness. Shudder. Congrats on such a well-received pitch, by the way! I'm working on one of two manuscripts - both nonfiction. One I plan to finish and have ready for self-publication this Spring. The other I hope to pitch to a traditional royalty publisher in a year or so. I'll make more money with the niche self-published title, but there's just something about landing a royalty publisher. It's a badge of honor moreso than a lucrative payout.
Although, a friend of mine who's daughter is an accomplished artist (with high functioning Autism) published a book last year through a traditional publisher and is doing quite well. She went through a publisher who deals solely in autism-related books. Fran, you never know...Coookie could pop up, just like I did.
I can't eat an oreo cookie without thinking of her. lol.Well at least getting sick had a silver lining!
I'm glad he was able to get out before getting shipped off. easy child's hubby, (a.k.a. The Favorite Son-in-Law) was shipped out to Afghanistan in Jan 09. Princess Fancy Face (granddaughter #2) was born in April. Luckily, he was able to get 2 weeks paternity leave to be home when she was born, but then was right back out and didn't come home until just before Christmas, when she was almost 9 months old. Now we've been told his unit will be shipped out again by Spring. I worry about him (and easy child) terribly. Our entire family stopped watching the news while he was deployed, so we wouldn't worry about what was going on near him. (He asked easy child not to watch so she wouldn't hear things and worry while she was pregnant with Princess Fancy Face, and to support her, none of us watched either.) It's nerve-racking to think of our kids over there and what could happen. In fact, it was news of his impending first deployment (he was stationed to one of the most deployed forts in the country, so it wasn't an if as much as when) that sped up he and easy child's wedding plans. He wanted to make sure, just in case, that she would be taken care of should something happen. I'm grateful that Jamie and his family (and you) didn't have to face those kinds of concerns. I'm so incredibly proud of how easy child and Hubby have been and continue to handle life as a military family during a war, but I fear for them both. It's not something I'd wish on any Mom.
