Fall 2013 - Apricots, Peaches, Plums, Apples, and more Apples and Other Stuff

I was just checking to see when the last time was that I posted to this blog. It was December of last year (2012)! I am busy, but not that busy. Unfortunately, this blog has not worked as well as I would have liked. I wanted Claudia to post to it, as well, and that never happened. In the meantime, I have found myself at the computer trying to catch up with everything else - the news, three types of Solitaire games, emails, family finances, and facebook. Most of what I have posted has been on facebook. This blog, as well as my two other blogs, have had very few, if any, posts.

A few minutes ago I though of something I wanted to post about, and now it is gone from my mind. Distractions are plentiful this week. Gabe is home from school because his school is moving to a new building.

All the same, I may as well post about Fall 2013, and our activities.

This has been the year of Carolyn and her two girls. We have had more visits from Carolyn and her two little ones this year than in any other year since she was married in January 2007. Carolyn came in April for a few days, then again in May for a few days, then the same from the middle of June until the end of July. Each time she had her two daughters with her. Through a series of unexpected events she is presently staying with us without her daughters.

Where is Sam, her husband? Where are the kids? Sam is down in Utah, caring for the kids and staying with his buddy and his parents - going back and forth between the two locations. We don't know where his friend lives in Salt Lake City, but we have been to visit with him at his parents' home in Provo, Utah.

Carolyn has been staying with us temporarily until their little family can get better settled. This economy is very rough on some of us.

Carolyn has been helping us around the house a lot and is very fun to have here - especially during canning season. She has helped much with the canning.

Claudia decided to not do any school contracts this school year, so she has been able to get some time for canning, freezing, and drying fruit. She has succeeded and we are once again filling our cupboards with healthy home-preserved items. We are thankful that our apple tree produced some apples for us this year. They are delicious! Claudia does work with clients in the afternoons and evenings - part-time.

We began with a few scattered apricots on our sweet-pit apricot tree (not enough to preserve any). Next came cherries, then some peaches and pears, then plums (from a friend's tree), and lately, apples from our tree in the back yard.

We now have many very delicious fruit items to eat over the next several months.

Gabriel has been growing more and more each day. He has been doing very well in school and at church, and his behaviors are improving much. Gabe has also been helping us a lot with the canning and preserving!! He loves to help and do grown-up things with the grown-ups. We are thankful to have him in our home.

Stephen now has a well-paying coding and tech job in town and has just about payed off  his school loans. He wants to go back to Japan again and explore some more.

Clyde has been reduced to no clients at all, and is currently working with two clients and has a possibility of working with two more soon.

Having had some unexpected expenses eat up more than our budget for several months, we now have hope of an improvement in our income.

Halloween is coming up tomorrow night and we still need to decorate for the occasion. I will be working with my client, and a friend will be taking Gabe around for trick-or-treat.

This Halloween we are once again aware that there are now two Halloweens for us, and we need to buy twice the candy. At the church we have already had our safe Trunk-or-Treat. It was last Saturday, at 2 p.m. and we also had donuts and hot chocolate, as we usually do. That consumed one large bag of candy as children, costumes and all, from our neighborhood came around to each of us at our cars in the church parking lot and gathered their treats. Since Claudia would only allow me one big bag of candy, I watched carefully to be certain no trick-or-treater came twice. We ran out of candy just as a new bunch of kids came to start their rounds. Gabe's neighborhood friends sat there on the sidewalk behind my car, sorting through their bags of candy. Gabe can't have chocolate, so he gave most of his chocolate to a friend. He then had no chocolate left, and I had hoped he had not eaten any. I may have hoped in vain. That evening I found the diarrhea evidence on the back of the toilet. He had exploded. He cleaned up the mess.

Carolyn made most of Gabe's costume by sewing together a large  piece of material that would work as a cape. I supplied the bandanna and Carolyn found a black strip of material to work as an eye patch.

In all that is happening in our lives at this time, we find ourselves thanking the Lord that we are all back together for a season. At the same time we know that life will go on, and that we won't be left behind.

Halloween Greetings to all!!

Happy Holidays to All!!

The Clyde and Claudia Tigner Family are having some happy times this holiday season. Gabriel, the most celebrated member, has been doing very well in school and has improved in all areas. He is really attaching well with everyone in the family. Stephen is now working IT at Center Partners, and enjoying that thoroughly. Claudia has, unfortunately, been diagnosed with Lupus, and has two forms of arthritis. And even though she feels she is falling apart, she is still excited about life. She is now a state certified professional Habilitative Interventionist for kids with developmental disabilities. She is also still working as a Developmental Therapy Tech in the schools. We don't know how she does all of this, but we do know that she is very, very tired every single night. The rest of us are working on taking up any of the slack that we can. Claudia is also very happy to be the only one in our immediate family to have spent a few days with our newest granddaughter, Samantha. Sam and Carolyn now have two daughters and are living in Provo, near Sam's parents. Clyde is still retired, and is working part-time as a Psychosocial Rehabilitation Worker with kids who have mental/emotional disabilities. Clyde is also looking for other opportunities to do more to earn money for the family. With early PERSI retirement and early Social Security coming in we are always struggling for our quality of life. On January 1, Clyde has to go Medicare. Luckily we were able to work out something for both Clyde and Claudia, so that our medical insurance with the school district will continue to cover Claudia until she is 65.

With all of this going on, we are still finding plenty of joy in serving others. Claudia has recently been called to be the Webelos Den Leader, and Clyde has been called to be her assistant. Our unit has only about 5 boys between the ages of 8 and 10, and is in the process of combining with another unit nearby. Claudia and Clyde will become the main Webelos Leaders between the two units. That means we will have about 9 boys instead of two!

We still have many family names to take to the temple, thanks to Clyde's brother, John. At the moment, however, Clyde is working hard to achieve his objective of 1,000 names indexed on Family Search Indexing before December 31.

We wish all of our friends, acquaintances, and family a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!! May the Lord bless all of you!!!

Catching You Up

Reboot!!!

An old post never published?

I have now been down for several months - Uh, with regard to this blog. I have been both busy and tired. July 22 our daughter, Carolyn, had another baby girl. She was 7 lbs. 6 oz. according to my spouse, Claudia, who left July 21 to be with Carolyn for the C-section.

In addition, we had a change in bishopric for our ward. Bishop Nukaya and his counselors were released and Jerry Tomlinson was sustained, with his new counselors, as our new bishop. 

July 22 was an eventful day, and I have continued my soul-searching to determine where I am spiritually and where I may need to go with regard to that part of my life.

My spirituality has always been the main focus in my life - and I have begun to believe that I have been losing  some of that over the past two or three years.

July 21 was both Stephen's (33) and Gabriel's (7) birthdays. We had some cake and ice cream and Gabriel got some presents. I don't think we gave Stephen anything, and we need to correct that omission. But he did abandon us for a party with his buddies for the evening.

Visiting with us for two weeks before the baby was born were two of my nieces, Karen and Mariah. We were glad to have had them with us.

Semi-Retired? Hah!!

Sometimes retirement for a "grand_____" raising a "grand______" can be more like having a new profession - very stressful. This is especially true when the little one has a plethora of therapy appointments and activities. I may be home much of the day, but between running errands and supporting Gabe's needs, and working part-time in a professional position it sure doesn't feel like it! It wouldn't be so bad, but the State of Idaho has added a new level of bureaucracy for getting transportation. What this means is a parent is just out of luck when it comes to a last minute logistical hitch - unless they have the money to pay for a cab. Most do not, to be sure. It takes more than a week for transportation to be set up for just one appointment per week. A.M.R. in Idaho has cut down on the transportation budget for people with disabilities by making it so difficult to get transportation that many have probably just given up on their kids' or clients' services due to lack of A.M.R.'s interest in their needs. I still have not heard what A.M.R. is being paid by the state for distressing the poor and disabled. Idaho now has the distinction of not only cutting their teachers' pay and classroom supply money to pay for student laptops, but also of balancing the state budget on the backs of the penniless and infirm.

This is not new for Idaho, of course. Shortening the hours of intensive therapy available to children 7 years and older to 6 or less hours per  week from 22 hours per week, and to 12 hours per week from 22 hours per week for younger kids, has also balanced the State Health and Welfare budget on the backs of their clients. Well, what do we expect? Less government is what the majority voted for, and less government is what they are getting - including some mentally ill people who are dangerous being let out on the streets to injure and kill - all in the name of cutting spending. How many of us would like to have a family member killed or killing others because the State did not have enough money to treat someone or to at least keep someone dangerous off the streets?

On our family's side of things, I have found myself becoming very confused over Gabe's appointments and transportation at times, and it would have been a lot easier if I could have called the transportation company directly, like we used to do. The other day one of my own clients had their service coordinator call me and request I switch my appointment with that client to another day. This was because of a new appointment conflict within the family. I immediately told the lady that we could switch to another day. No problem, I said. Ah - yes. Ahem. And after I hung up the phone I realized the implications of all this. I would now have to take Gabe to his appointment on that day, and I would have to find someone to take him on the other day each week while I worked with my client.

It was a busy day and as I drove around from place to place I found myself calling A.M.R. to have them change Gabe's transportation to the specified day. What I forgot was that there was no way I would be able to change his appointment to that other day. It seemed so simple, too. Well, eventually I called A.M.R. (they are in Boise, not in town here), and completely cancelled all transportation for Gabe. I  also called our friend who said she would baby sit him for us on the other day. She insists on picking him up at school and not having tax payer money do that. And she now has him two days a week.

I never realized what it was going to be like to be a Mr. Mom and manage all of this. My respect for our nation's mothers has grown immensely over the past few months, and especially with this last episode. How they do all of this I may never know. I just know it is stressful and complex. It is about time I learned about all this. I am thinking that Claudia is getting a lot of laughs out of all this - at my expense. But that is okay. What are husbands and fathers for anyway, if not for getting at least some humor out of our feeble attempts to manage what our wives have done almost effortlessly for years!

Gmail - Four Tips for Soothing Sibling Rivalry - ctigner1@gmail.com

Gmail - Four Tips for Soothing Sibling Rivalry - ctigner1@gmail.com:

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I received this article from Love and Logic.com

University of Utah and Google Team Up to Help Families with Children on the Autism Spectrum | University of Utah News

University of Utah and Google Team Up to Help Families with Children on the Autism Spectrum | University of Utah News:

'via Blog this'

I have posted this link on all of my blog sites. This may be important information for those of you who have children who are aspergers or autistic and very intelligent in certain subjects or areas.

Progress or Not Progress? That Is Always the Question!

Gabriel is always a mystery to me. When he came to us, he could barely talk and didn't seem to understand what we were saying to him much of the time. Now he talks my ear off. When we first got him, he was so much more difficult than he now is to get to bed. Thankfully my cousin Becky was there for us, and thankfully both Claudia and I had been trained to work with, and had a few years of experience with disabled children.

An important thing about challenging children is that they tend to take the proverbial two steps forward and one step back. When he started school this past fall, we thought we mostly had him potty-trained. Recently he has shown us otherwise! Of course he is a lot farther along on this than he was when we got him.

I continually find myself reading various books related to Gabriel and the kids I work with professionally. At the moment I probably have at least 5 or 6 of these in progress. I often use them as references for specific situations, bibliotherapy, and activity ideas. Then there are times when I need a review - often a very fast review!! I simply cannot gain new knowledge as fast as I think I need it! He appears to always be ahead of me!!

One thing is certain, though. He has found his way into our hearts and Claudia and I both love him very much and treasure those moments of sweetness he brings into our lives.

We are so thankful for Gabriel!