Update and Google Reader

News on Me

So, I think this post will be really random. First of all, I'd like to say I'm sorry for not updating my blog much. I have a lot going on to talk about, but the issue is I don't have a lot of time, and when I do have time to write for my own enjoyment, I usually don't want to.

Why? Because I've been writing for a job lately. In February, I applied for to be a writing intern at a media company in Draper, Utah. This has been basically my only source of income for the last few months. It's been consistent enough that I no longer get unemployment (though I assume I could sign up again if this work ends). It's been pretty good and I've enjoyed it for the most part. They even wanted to hire me, and proposed to their higher ups to hire a writer, but they denied the proposal. So until I find a more permanent job, this will help. If you want to see some of the writing I've done, you go to Purity Tox-X, Purity 12 Tri-Factor, Purity 12 Green Tea Metabolizer, Skin Care article, and Purity 12 Blogs. Those are just a few of the things I've written. Most of what I have done for them hasn't even been used yet.

What else is cool is they're paying me to learn about search engine optimization. They don't pay me much to do the training, but it's such good information to know, so to get paid to learn about it is great. I'm also doing some other training on my own to learn how to use Dreamweaver--which I can hopefully use to create my own site or something. So things have been going pretty well.

News on Alex

Alex is doing awesome. He took his first steps in mid-March and has been working every day on walking. There were days when he would just walk around as if he was so amazed by it and just the experience of walking. Now he walks everywhere and rarely crawls. He falls quite a bit, but usually doesn't complain (as long as he doesn't hit anything on the way down). He's also eating more regular foods, though many he doesn't seem to like. I think he's just getting used to new textures, so hopefully this picky stage will pass. He definitely has likes and dislikes--more so now than with baby food. He loves chicken nuggets and cheese, and he prefers his oatmeal to be thin. He doesn't like eggs (even when I tried putting cheese on them) or cottage cheese or wheat bread. He likes Life cereal and Multi-Grain Cheerios more than other cereals. He also likes animal crackers. 

What's frustrating is he likes most of the baby food and pureed food, but he wants to feed himself. So I'm trying to figure out foods he can feed himself so he doesn't get upset and frustrated with me. I'll let him use a spoon sometimes, but more often then not, he'll throw the food all over the place or throws the spoon on the floor. He also hasn't quite gotten how to get the food on the spoon, so I'll try to get it from him just to put food on there, and he'll get upset and then push the spoon away when I try to give it back to him. He does a pretty good job at getting the food in his mouth, but it's frustrating letting him feed himself with a spoon.

So anyway, some foods he can feed himself with is cereal, crackers, cheese, and chicken nuggets. I've also tried canned fruit cut up, but so far I haven't really been able to get him to eat it. Even fruits he liked pureed, he doesn't like as chunks. I'm assuming it's the texture, so I'm hoping he'll get used to it from more tries, but we'll see. He also loves peas, so those are easy, and he seems to like green beans okay (which he loved pureed). He even ate steamed broccoli that Aaron gave to him. I guess it's just a matter of him getting used to eating chunks, but it's frustrating dealing with this transition, and I feel so limited on what fruits and veggies I have to feed him with. 

News on Aaron

Aaron finished his semester last week. We were so glad to get it done. One of his classes was fine, and he did really well (got the highest grade on all three tests out of the whole class and an A in the class). The other one was harder because they material was so vague and the concepts were hard to define. This type of stuff is really hard for Aaron and even though this was the second time he took it, he had to work really hard to pass the class. We think he passed, but we'll have to wait and see. 

What's frustrating, though, is how not understanding the teacher in the class was. Aaron has accomodations from the school for his ADD. This includes getting extra time on assignments. He had 6 projects in the class. Now assuming he had 50% more time for each assignment, the deadline for each assignment would have to be pushed back, meaning that the last assignment wold likely be turned in way later than the rest of the class. In the accomadations letter given to his teacher at the beginning of the semester, it explained that all deadlines should be discussed with Aaron, but instead of talking to Aaron about when a reasonable deadline should be for these assignments, the teacher would just take off a penalty for being late. I could understand this if he had ever told Aaron what the adjusted deadline would be, but he never did, so Aaron didn't know when he would have had to turn them in and not received a late penalty. 

On top of that, Aaron tried to keep him informed on what he was working on and when he planned to turn each assignment in. And he talked to his teacher after the first assignment he turned in received a penalty. Yet, despite this, his teacher still didn't communicate with him and would just arbritrarily decide an assignment was late. So basically Aaron is going to talk to his counselor in the Student Disability Office and see if she can help him talk to his teacher. Hopefully he'll get the points back and he'll pass the class, so he doesn't have to take it a third time (assuming of course that doing so is necessary. He might have passed; we're not sure). 

Google Reader

Next item of business is Google Reader. I have Google's email (which is awesome and you should try it out if you haven't). Well, recently I discovered Google Reader. If you have Gmail, you can just click on "Reader" at the top of your email to use it. Here you can enter the address of all the blogs you read regularly, so you don't have to keep checking them to see if they've updated. (This is especially helpful for blogs, like mine has been, that update infrequently, so you don't miss stuff because you stopped checking.) Every day or week or whatever, you can bring up Reader and see who has updated and read their blogs right in Reader's window. It also has a link to the post if you want to comment and such. It's a really awesome tool, and it really helps when your friends aren't on the same blog service as you (so you can't just go to your friends page to see who has updated).