Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Long time update!

 I pretty much forgot that this blog existed, and although I doubt anyone will ever read this, I thought it might be fun to put some life updates on here.

Since I last updated here, I:

1) Got a great autism therapist for my oldest son, who helped him grow and develop into an amazing young man.

2) Transitioned my oldest son from regular homeschooling to some online schooling with just a couple of subjects done with me. He is now almost entirely independent with schoolwork!

3) Got my oldest daughter diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia and got her meds for ADHD and a math tutor to help us keep up and make progress. It took several years of hard work but I taught her to read and she loves books! I also found her a great therapist who uses art to help her with emotional regulation. I feel that with so many siblings with special needs, she needs her own support.

4) Got my student loans discharged by the DOE based on my income and autism diagnosis!

5) Got my younger daughter through years of ABA, speech, and occupational therapy. Got her sleeping meds and just finally got her to sometimes sleep through the night in her own bed. 

7) Had the bad kind of covid and survived. It took me two years to finally get over it!

6) Developed a disorder called diabetes insipidus (not related to sugar or insulin), and after almost a year got diagnosed and treated. I will have it for the rest of my life but it's usually easily managed with pills. It does limit the kinds of workouts I can do and I have to be careful about staying out of the heat, but otherwise I am fine!

8) Had my second baby boy! Teddy is healthy and happy!

9) Had my third son Robert McKenzie! We survived three weeks of Robert in the NICU. Since he came home, we've taken him to the regular pediatrician, the developmental pediatrician, the audiologist, the physiatrist, he sees an OT, PT, and DI through EI. He also does outpatient therapy through our insurance and gets PT, OT, speech and feeding therapy. He began seeing a GI and recently had a g tube placed. We have lots of case managers and a couple of social workers as well. Managing Robert's medical care has been almost a full time job this past year.

10) Did countless house projects. Some of the big ones were replacing our fence, finishing the basement (this one is almost complete), redoing our half bath and moving everyone around so that everyone has their own bedroom.

11) Got the best dog ever and trained him pretty well :) My labradoodle Bluey is a great comforter when things get tough.

12) Applied for respite care and finally got it after six months of paperwork and waiting. We now have assistance towards hiring an occasional babysitter and I have weekly cleaning help!

13) Worked on becoming a better writer. Now have drafts for a tv script, outlines for multiple film scripts, a novel, countless short stories and articles, and several children's books.

14) Kept up my job, never missed a deadline, even when in the hospital giving birth!

15) Celebrating all holidays, birthday, and special occasions.

16) Figured out how to afford to go to Disney on the regular. Had awesome vacations and memories.

17) Got handicap placards for W and R.

Going forward, I have so many hopes and dreams. I may not reach all of these goals, but here they are:

1) Support my oldest son on his journey toward adulthood. This means having him take the SAT/ACT, helping him achieve great grades in school by giving him whatever support he needs, making sure he is in challenging classes with good teachers, making sure he has appropriate supports and accommodations where necessary, helping him get his driver's license, and just generally making sure that he knows everything he needs to know in order to be a good human.

2) Focus on academics and bonding with my girls. My older daughter has learning disabilities and my younger daughter has moderate autism, so school is difficult for them. I want to make sure that even while we are trying our best to meet goals and get them up to grade level with academics, I also take time to feed them spiritually and creatively. They are both talented with art and music and I want to make sure that they have the opportunities to grow in those areas. Learn French with Stella.

3) My toddler Teddy is pretty happy go lucky, for him my goals are simple, potty trained, tot schooled, able to buckle himself into the car and get dressed on his own!

4) For Robert we are pursuing lots of options, including home nursing care for night tube feeding, getting fitted with thumb and ankle braces, getting a stander and then later a gait trainer, researching more about treatments like stem cell therapies, getting him into a medical day care program that has even better therapies and equipment to help him make progress, and getting him on medicaid to help pay for his extra medical expenses. 

5) Finish up all the little odds and ends and projects around the house, and organize all the things so that everything has a home. Along with this I want to have better routines for housework and upkeep, and train my kids so that they can help with some of the household maintenance. 

6) Do a couple of larger projects, like finishing the basement steps, and as a stretch goal I would love to add on a large family room and a handicap accessible bathroom.

7) Have more regular date nights with my husband.

8) Have more routines overall, and build in more special times with my kids and all my family.

9) Take some really awesome trips. Go to Japan with Henry, go to France with Stella.

10) Figure out how to get my writing out in to the world. Have a plan in place to get paid for something I've written by the time I'm forty.

11) Buy a van that fits our whole family and any equipment Robert needs.

12) Figure out how to pay for the kids who want to go to college, (scholarships, make extra $).


Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Update

Since my last post on this blog, I have:

1) Started a business making girls' clothing called prettybyrdie
2) Decided I couldn't expand that business ethically
3) Turned it into a hobby instead
4) Got a real job (part-time and working from home, but with a salary)
5) Starting homeschooling all three of my kids
6) Bought a fixer upper
7) Spent 8 months renovating that fixer upper
8) Moved us out of our two bedroom apartment into our new 5 bedroom house!
9) Found my son in-home therapists
10) Got my younger daughter diagnosed with autism
11) Got sued by my husband's former client (details: not his fault, but cheaper to go bankrupt than to fight the lawsuit, so....)
12) Declared bankruptcy, bringing my near perfect credit score down to not so perfect
13) Realized after educating myself about autism that I'm likely on the autism spectrum
14) Suddenly understood why I've always struggled with certain things
15) Worked to accept myself and invested in friendships with people who are understanding and accepting of me, just the way I am
16) Decided to be authentically myself, at least some of the time, and allow myself to partake in special interests that other people might not find cool or interesting, but that fulfill me and bring me joy
17) Realized that I probably need to do something creative in order to live


Going forward:

I would like to keep updating this space, even if it's only once a year or so, as a sort of record of my journey. I'm also working on a new website and blog that will have less personal topics, more posts geared towards helping other people with specific issues, and expressing myself creatively. The domain I've set aside for that is gracebyrd.com. On it I'm planning on posting about motherhood, being a working and homeschooling mom, being a homeschooling mom of kids with special needs, having special needs, and how all of those things fit together. I also have a lot of creative content, like sewing and crafting info that I'd like to share somewhere, so I may end up making a second wordpress site for that as well.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

A Little Insomniac Poetry

-->
I was born hungry
from my mother’s breast
took, took, took

Nine I looked
into a hell
and shuddering, backed away

Fourteen swaying to the beat
of love, love, love

In love with all
the world
and its people,
and its places,
and creations

Twenty when I felt the earth
open and expanding
Funny how I thought I’d be
the exception to the rule

Twenty-three the
tiny beating mixing with my own
slave, slave, slave

Thirty and I gave
away all those little things
and I imagine
I will die hungry as I am

Monday, January 18, 2016

Debt Update 1/19

Christmas, a trip down to Georgia for a funeral, and medical expenses have killed my paying off debt plan. As it stands, I am basically treading water this month trying to keep our finances moving in the right direction. In order to stay somewhat on track, I think we are going to transfer our credit card balance to a zero interest card and stick to the original plan of attacking our bar loans.

Here are the balances:
Pay off credit card - currently about 5k
Pay off undergrad 1,703.96
Pay off Bar Loan #1 8,706.16
Pay off Bar Loan #2 8,697.12

Car #1 about 10K
Car #2 about 16K
Law School Loans about 250K

Goals for 2016:

Jan.-Feb.
Live on cash
Transfer CC balance to zero interest card, pay 3% up front for the year
Pay med. expenses from 2015, and pay out of pocket for 2016 until we hit our deductible (2,500)

March - May
Live on cash
Pay 6K on Bar Loan #1
Use tax return to pay off the rest of Bar Loan #1
Have a fun birthday party!

June - Aug.
Live on cash
Pay 6K on Bar Loan #2
Pay for Henry's co-op with cash

Sept. - Oct.
Live on cash
Pay off Bar Loan #2
Pay off Remainder of Undergrad loan
Celebrate Willoughby's First birthday

Nov. - Dec.
Live on cash
Pay 4K on zero interest card
Celebrate Henry's birthday
Travel for Thanksgiving
Have a nice Christmas

Goals for 2017
Pay off remainder of zero interest card
Buy a house




Sunday, December 13, 2015

Debt Update 12/13

I missed updating last time. Things got somewhat confusing for the end of the year because we were able to change our FSA withholding right at the end to cover some of the extra medical expenses. Since I knew we'd end up carrying some expenses on the credit card I focused on getting rid of the zero interest card instead.

Goals for Debt Payoff:
Pay off zero interest card #1 1000
Pay off credit card - currently about 2k
Pay off zero interest card #2 1,253
Pay off undergrad 1,745.56
Pay off Bar Loan #1 8,756
Pay off Bar Loan #2 8,747

Here's my end of the year plan:
11/24 - put extra on cc
Enjoy Christmas!

The plan for next year is a little different because our insurance will have a $2,500 deductible, so we'll pay out of pocket for that and then have no co-pays for the rest of the year. We'll have another $2,500 withheld and put into an HSA so that we'll have it saved for 2017 at the start of that year.

Here's my new plan up to May 2016:
1/7 - pay $ for medical expenses, pay down CC
1/21 - pay cash for medical expenses, pay down CC
2/4 - pay 1k on Bar loan
2/18 - pay 1k on Bar loan
3/3 - pay 1k on Bar loan
3/17 - pay 1k on Bar loan, pay 300 on undergrad
3/31 - pay 1k on Bar loan
4/14 - pay 1k on Bar loan
Use tax return to pay off remainder of Bar loan #1!
4/28 do something fun for Stella's birthday!


Expenses to plan for:
Disney - plane and package bought, just need incidentals
Gallbladder surgery co-pay- 250
New tires for van - 200

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Debt Update 11/15

I changed up the plan again, but we are still plugging along. We had a modest birthday party for Henry/Open house for people to meet the baby, so spent a little on that. We also bought our plane tickets for Disney because they were pretty cheap. Here's the updated balances:

Goals for Debt Payoff:
Pay off zero interest card #1 1000
Pay off credit card 662 Paid off but we used this card to purchase plane tix, will have about 1K balance until next paycheck
Pay off zero interest card #2 1,253
Pay off undergrad 1,780
Pay off Bar Loan #1 8,809
Pay off Bar Loan #2 8,800

Here's my continued pay-off plan from now until Christmas:

11/26 - put 1,000 on credit card to pay for Disney plane tickets

12/10 - Pay 1,253 to pay off zero interest card

12/24 - pay off hospital bills and use anything left over to reduce undergrad loan

In other financial minutia, we get to change our fsa withholding after having Willoughby, so we can adjust it to cover all of our extra co-pays and hospital bills with pre-tax dollars.

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Debt Update 10/31

We ended up deciding not to put an offer on the second house, but rather wait and see if something better comes along.

In the meantime we are plowing through debt and it couldn't feel better!

Goals for Debt Payoff:
Pay off zero interest card #1 1000
Pay off credit card 662
Pay off zero interest card #2 2,653
Pay off undergrad 1,824
Pay off Bar Loan #1 8,865
Pay off Bar Loan #2 8,857

Here's my continued pay-off plan from now until Christmas:

11/12 - pay 1,100 on zero interest card
          - put 300 on cc

Use expected check from Greg's old practice (1,600) to pay off remaining balance of zero interest card.

11/26 - put 1,000 on undergrad
          - put 300 on cc

12/10 - buy plane tickets for Disney (1000?)

12/24 - pay off hospital bill (500) and any leftover balances on cc's