Happy 7th birthday to me!!

So here is to the seventh time that there's been a February 29th since I was born and to knowing that I will never live long enough to celebrate my "star" birthday [turning the age of your date of birth for me would be 29 but 116 in actual years].  Here's to my first birthday without my dad and to the heartbreak of reaching nearly 6 months that he has been gone.  On my last real birthday my dad sent me a bouquet of flowers as a personal joke because of a stupid movie we had watched.  It has been six months but there are still times when I start to dial his number but then remember that he will not be there.  Sometimes I just shrug it off and sometimes it still hits me hard enough to knock me down.

But aside from that, JD is taking me out tonight and we are going somewhere nice.  He bought Max one of those tuxedo shirts for dogs.  Max was not very certain about it while it was going on but once it was in place he did not mind it.  I feel like this entry is mainly filler but my life is about more than my diffability and the research and other work I do and I do not consider these things filler outside of my blog so I guess I should stop considering them filler within my blog.

Max just came back to check on me.  It is a bit weird when he does this but he will be in another room, doing whatever it is that occupies his time, then he will just stop whatever it is and come to where I am.  He walks up to me and looks at me for a bit then turns around and goes back to whatever he was doing.  Just now he had been playing ball with JD outside - I could see them through the second story window - and had caught the ball but instead of going back to JD Max just went back inside, came up the stairs to where I am and just looked at me.  He is pretty goofy holding a pink tennis ball, wearing a tuxedo shirt, and cocking his head at me.  But after he assessed me for whatever he was looking for he went back outside to JD like nothing happened.  JD is used to this behavior fortunately and he will just wait for Max to come back but it still feels weird to have this sentient being checking up on me.  Some days it makes me feel bad that he does not get to just be a dog but he also gets so excited when I pickup his pack, vest, and/or work leash so I remind myself that Max is happy with his job.  Happy with his job to the point that he willingly stops being a regular dog to ensure he is not needed.  Which is rather cool when I think about it like that.

So I am not DIEing yeT

First week down and I did pretty good.  I will admit to a moment of weakness Tuesday when Alice was over and I split a bag of M&M's with her despite having eaten a chocolate bar earlier that day.  Otherwise I was able to stick to my goals.  This coming week I will be cooking on Thursday when I have Alice and I will let you guys know how THAT goes.  I will also be refraining from candy while Alice is over to make this week a bit challenging.

Diet is just the word DIE with a "T" at the end

I will be changing the way that I eat.  Which also means that I will be changing the way that I cook... By actually cooking.  It will be an interesting experiment which I hope JD and I will survive.  However, I am not starting by jumping into cooking, I am starting much smaller than that and I welcome my readers to join me on this quest [and to include any questions/suggestions/thoughts in the comments on these diet posts] to slowly conquer eating healthier.

So this week will be week 1 of the new diet plan.  Joy.  The mid-term goal is to cut out artificial sweetener as it is a migraine trigger for me.  I will also be ensuring that I do not purchase peanut butter with xylitol as that is toxic to dogs.  This week's short term goal will also be no more than 20oz of soda [real sugar cherry Pepsi] per day and only 1 candy/sugary snack item per day [ie chocolate, hard candy, sucker, anything that isn't considered a food item - honey is a freebee].  I realize that this does not sound like a lofty goal but I find that results are easier to accomplish when the steps are smaller.

Reflection

So yesterday's post was the more immediate response to my father's passing.  Today I'd like to reflect on this past 4 months without him.  I had my first Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year without him.  Holidays are weird because he was really the only reason I got excited about the holidays.  Thanksgiving I stayed home because I did not want to go with JD to be with his family because [as I suspected] my mother made an appearance there hoping that she could force herself upon me but I was not even there.  [As an aside, JD did capture her disappointment at discovering I was absent on video and assured me that she was miserable for the 20 minutes his family engaged her until she could escape.  I'll admit that made me smile a little - it is the small things in life, after all.

Here is to a Happy 2016!

Because this past year has been so epic, I am promising an entry per day to my blog. I have been busy writing the last two and a half years but not posting after somebody threatened to expose my identity [and my dad passed away, and JD and I are living together again... many things have happened]. Also, in 2015 the Colorado Revised Statues saw an overhaul of 24-34 Part 8 that made life for disabled persons (having disabilities aside from visual or hearing impairments) with service dogs SO MUCH EASIER!!! Oh, and that reminds me... I got a service dog!!  [See, many things have happened.]

In celebration I present you with 366 brand new entries which will cover: 

     · My classes [which I'm currently taking a hiatus from]

     · Alice 

     · Training my service dog Max 

     · ADA issues

     · Effects of the alteration of Autism criteria under DSM5

     · Random thoughts!
     · The new diet I'm trying... [help me!]

On the ride side of my blog you will see the calendar where I will link each day's post [as some will be published with past dates] making all my new entries easy to find. I am so excited for 2016!

And the bottom drops out.

My dad passed away a few days ago.  This has been so hard for me to talk about but I know that I must.  I am so thankful that I got to be with him before he died but nothing really prepares you to lose your parents at this age.  Children are supposed to outlive their parents but this is too wide of a margin.  I went to the hospital that day thinking that the next day he would leave ICU and everything would eventually get back to normal.  Well, the next day he did leave ICU but he did not leave it alive.  If you ask me, he officially died that day that I saw him for by the next day there really was not anything left to save despite the doctors trying.  There is nothing that prepares you for that helpless feeling you get when you know there is nothing more to be done but you desperate need there to be an undo button for real life.  A way to change those moments that after the fact are so easy to identify.  Those turning points when the result could have been affected and the harsh reality banished.

The 3 year anniversary...

So it's been 3 years since I was fired from my job.  So much has happened since then and so many things are still happening but I wish to reflect on this day.

Working in a hostile environment is akin to being in boarding school, as I would imagine it.  There is so much going on in your life but just as every teacher acts as their class is your only class so does each conflict at work become 'the only thing' that is happening to you.  Problems with your personal relationship? Irrelevant because you have to deal with the depression from your work environment.  Having issues paying the bills because you have lost so much pay between suspensions and increased medical bills? Well, leave that behind because you have to deal with working through your symptoms and trying to meet this goal that is unattainable without your accommodation.  Basically all of your problems become moot because your teacher expects that the only problems you have are the ones they assigned.