FaceBook - Not Loving It

I fought it for YEARS...but I am finally on the FaceBook and none too happy about it.

It is all so overwhelming: too much information, infinite points of contact and messaging, strangers lurking, inconvenient intrusions and the biggest potential time-suck I can imagine, especially for addictive personalities and compulsive sharers (I am/have been a member of both groups) -- no offense to my rabid FaceBook Friends who know how to FB and enjoy it, obviously a great deal.

I just don't get it.

I have already been contacted, "Friend Requested", by people I don't know, don't remember, don't want to know, don't want to remember and others I can't even categorize. Please don't be offended if I graciously "ignore" and keep this all very limited -- I am not on FaceBook to make Friends or Friends of Friends. I have no interest in the competition for number of Friends or connections or, god forbid, the games...that would be really, really, really bad for me, due to the addictive personality and/or tendency to share compulsively, which I have learned -- after 42 years -- is not always such a great thing or even a good idea online or In The Real World.

I joined the FaceBook for one reason only: to interact with my school community, Georgia Cyber Academy. FaceBook is, apparently, where it's at for the Moms, students and families who are enrolled in our online public charter school -- it is the preferred method of communication and interaction about school, activities, events and everything related. How it came to this, I don't know, but nevertheless, there, on FaceBook, I am.

Grumble, grumble...

New Rebel Review Posted

This week is a break, of sorts, from teaching. Since we have been homeschooling (kind of) 9yo Aspy Phenom through Georgia Cyber Academy (GCA), this week we report to an official CRCT site for the mandatory state testing; every day this week, 8am to Noon. It's only Tuesday, and he is already Over It: it's hard to get up at 6:30am!

"And they don't let you talk or do anything!" -- this is a level of Hell for my very active boy, but I told him it's The Law and we're going to get through it, with the promise: Saturday we shall sleep in and have donuts (of Dunkin') for breakfast!

Our CRCT site is in the wilds of SW Atlanta, at a technical college. The college is nice, but the surrounding area not so much, so I stay on-campus, in the building, while he is testing. Fortunately, there is a great seating area in the conference center, with comfy couches, good lighting and WIFI! So here I am...

For the first time in four months since I became a 4th grade teacher, I finished a Rebel Review -- and it's a good one, speaking of education:

Rebel Review - BOOKS: STONES INTO SCHOOLS

Welcome, Spring!

Test-blogging from the iPhone...
Mocha-the-Dog, outside of the tennis courts at Piedmont Park, not a prison!

iPad Mom & Dad

I am blogging on an iPad, which is amazing.

Conveniently enough, Apple released the iPad very close to Dear Hubby's birthday in March, so I pre-ordered for delivery on Magical Saturday, when the UPS trucks carried the specially-marked boxes to the masses, in many cases under armed escort, Brinks-truck-style. (It sure beat camping out in line at the Apple Store Friday night!)

So we have one -- a big one (64 gig memory), which I insist on calling the MaxiPad, much to my husband's chagrin. (They really should have thought of that during the name branding stage. I love the thing, but the name is unfortunate.). We are trying to come up with a new family moniker for it, since there is a name for everything in our household: The desktop iMac "Big Mac"; our GPS navigation system "Lois" (subtle reference therein, involving Malcolm in the Middle and 2001: A Space Odyssey). The current family truckster is the "Big Blue Deuce" -- I don't always fully understand or remember the references and antecedents myself, but I think that was a mash-up between a NASCAR homage (although we are not fans of Kurt Busch, the driver of the Miller Lite #2 Dodge) and the Robin Williams' movie RV (the "big [green] turd").

Anyway. We're working on it.

Not only has It eased the transition to 44 for my Prince Charming, It has changed our family, technologically. Although we admittedly have plenty of -- and perhaps more than enough -- screen options in our home, the iPad is in constant demand, and it's not just the novelty of a new gadget. DH and I constantly have to fight the kids for time on the new toy.

Hubby uses the iPad in the morning, to browse the news and weather from various sources. He has been transitioning, with the iPhone, from our old-school daily and weekend Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) to USA Today, which offers the best presentation and format -- on the iPhone -- of national news and also has a Motor Sports category (for the NASCAR news, of course).

USA Today has not made the best transition to the iPad (where the heck is the much-loved Motor Sports category?!) and there have been rumblings of moving to a paid subscription model, so we'll see...

Strong contender for news on the iPad: NPR, which Mommy now prefers. And the AJC finally has an app, which is useful for a touch of local news. Just don't expect much more than that, as our local rag seems to have fired most of their real journalists and editors to pay minimum wage interns to regurg(itate) AP News headlines, pretty much verbatim.

But I digress--

Mommy also likes the iPad as an interactive, easy-to-read, easy-to-wipe-clean source of recipes with pictures, which makes cooking easier and more fun, especially if I switch over to the ABC app in-between and use the iPad as a faux-TV in the kitchen to catch up on my shows. (Actually, who am I kidding? I don't really watch much TV and the kids appreciate that ABC app way more than I do. Now if I could cue up GLEE while I'm in the kitchen (not the new GLEE app that I am supposed to sing with, the real show), that would be awesome.

For recipes, I like:
AllRecipes Dinner Spinner
Epicurious
and the Crock-Pot iPhone app

I am also addicted to an iPhone game that is way-better on the iPad: Word Warp (kind of like Boggle). Don't even get me started. I love that game!

This is the point where I need to put the iPad down and go to "Mom's Mac" to finish this article. While the iPad is very cool and blogging shorts on it is totally do-able, this piece just became a long and I need easier document navigation and formatting tools to review, edit and publish...

(This is not even what I should be working on at the moment, but there you go.)

Asperger's Syndrome & A New Normal

Logging into my blog account today, I was shocked to discover...
it has been many weeks, months, in fact, since I have finished and published a blog article on RebelHousewife.com. Oh, I've started many thoughts, on paper, on post-its, in my head, in TextEdit and Word. There are several waiting patiently on the blog as "unpublished" -- wonderful starts about kids, Aspergers Syndrome, homeschooling (kind of), the teenager, the learner's permit (driving?!) and banishing the XBOX 360 from our home. There are others about books, events, recipes and cost-cutting strategies for family financial survival in tough times.

I seem to have a problem, of late, finishing what I start. I've never been a non-closer before and yet here I am...

It has been an eventful couple of months.

I actually logged on today to write a thought about Iceland and Vanity Fair and NPR, volcanoes and economic meltdowns and such, only to make this horrifying discovery. I am going to finish this, and fix the Twitter link on the website and then maybe I can get back to that thought about Iceland...

And maybe that's the answer. Why can't I finish anything I start lately? Maybe it's because, every time I start something, something else comes along to take my attention and focus. The constant distractions of life with a busy entrepreneurial husband, three children and Mocha-the-dog. I don't work outside the home. I can't imagine how I would. We no longer have the big house or yard to manage, having downsized to our midtown condo and our one-mile live-work-school-play radius (and loving it!). What excuse could I possibly have to be such a slacker?

We started this school year with three kids in three different schools: 15yo Puberty Angst Boy in 9th grade at the high school; 12yo Drama Queen in 7th grade at the middle school; and 9yo ADHD Phenom started the year in 4th grade at the brand-new elementary school.

Ah, there's another clue to what's happened: Turns out, our very bright, very ACTIVE 9yo ADHD Phenom is not ADHD at all (okay, well, that's a whole 'nother start that I do need to finish, kind of controversial). He has Asperger's Syndrome, which is high-functioning Autism, so he is our 9yo Aspy Phenom. Not a lot of people know what that is, or have any idea what Asperger's Syndrome is (we didn't), so I have some explaining and education to do on that point, I know.

But before I can explain, educate or crusade for a better understanding of Asperger's Syndrome, I needed to understand it better myself and live with it for a while.

* * An aside: If you are at all interested in Asperger's Syndrome, please read the wonderful letter Especially for Grandparents of Children With Asperger Syndrome by Nancy Mucklow. It is appropriate and highly relevant for anybody close to or in the life of a child diagnosed with Asperger's.

So what happened next: In January, we brought the 9yo Aspy Phenom home. The brand-new public school was on a shake-down cruise, getting all of their new-school processes, programs and procedures worked out. We were on our own shake-down cruise, trying to figure out and adjust to this new information and really-quite-remarkable aspect of our son -- finally, we had understandings and strategies that were actually working and helping him, whereas the ADD strategies -- including the medication he was on for more than two years -- never served him well. The school couldn't keep up, couldn't meet his needs academically or provide the structure and stability he needed.

He now attends school from home, although he is not technically a "home schooler." We enrolled him in 4th grade in the Georgia Cyber Academy (GCA), an online public charter school supported by the Georgia Department of Education. As a public school, the schedule and curriculum is established and GCA provided everything we need to attend school from home: books, workbooks, novels, math manipulatives, even all of the materials needed for science experiments! We have a teacher we work with, mostly online, who monitors progress and administers his IEP (yet another complicated issue for another time). We have an abundance of opportunities for social interaction, with field trips and meet-ups and activities all over, all the time.

And there it is: I haven't been able to finish a thought in months, or devote the time I used to have to lose myself in reading, researching, writing, reviewing or blogging, because I am teaching and experiencing the 4th grade all over again with my 9yo Aspy Phenom. It has been amazing -- not EASY, as this has been a HUGE adjustment for both of us and for the entire family. It has been a very challenging transition, but worth it to have the time and opportunity to work with and get to know this brilliant child.

Now then, that's not such a bad reason to be a slacker, after all.
I'm glad I was able to finish that thought.
I am hoping there will be more!