Tonight, more thank yous…

First, a huge thank you to all my family and friends who supported us today in our Walk for Autism Speaks.  Our family raised over three times our goal for donations, and our team raised almost six times more than our original goal.  Today, my family walked with about 20,000 others – all affected in someway by autism spectrum disorder.  Our team was comprised of all first time walkers.  For those of us with kids on the spectrum, this was our first time “going public”, so to speak, and certainly the first time asking our friends and family to support a cause like this.  I am so proud to have been walking side by side (or in some cases separated by a few thousand people) today with such amazing friends.

Speaking of that, I was extremely humbled to have had my cousin and my very good friend walk with us today.  Neither one of them have kids on the spectrum, but they were there to support us.  I am honored that they chose this event to come to with their husbands and kids and walk with us.  A huge thank you from me to them.

And now, more thank yous…

Over the past few months that I’ve been writing here, I’ve been blessed to have “met” some fantastic writers along the way.  I’m learning that one of the ways that we bloggers like to support each other is through “awards”, given to each other on our blogs to encourage others to go to our favorite sites.  I’ve been lucky enough to receive a few of these awards from some of my favorite sites: Training Happy Hearts, Floortime Lite Mama, Life in the House that Asperger Built, and I Should Have Named Him Calvin.  Yes, I’ve been saving them up, partly because I keeping forgetting about it, and partly because I couldn’t figure out how to put in a picture into my post.

Both problems solved tonight.

So idea behind the Versatile Blogger Award is to write seven things about yourself that others might not know, and then pass the award on to seven other bloggers (kind of a blogging chain letter but without the photocopying and postage stamps).  So here goes:

1.  I was a Geography major in college, but still have a terrible sense of direction.

2.  My husband and I met at work, and I fell in love when he helped me figure out the lyrics to “Only Want to Be With You” by Hootie and the Blowfish

3. My two favorite Broadway plays are “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Jesus Christ Superstar” and I can sing along with every song.

4. One of my biggest regrets in life was quitting piano lessons in 7th grade to play softball.

5.  I used to be a politician.  Now I just complain about them.

6.  The first concert I ever saw was “Huey Lewis and the News” in Lake Placid, NY.  A huge thank you to my cousins who went with me because my parents wouldn’t let me go without them.

7. I have yet to get through an episode of NBC’s “Parenthood” without getting weepy.

Now the next step is to list seven of my favorite blogs so others can check them out.  Now, two of my favorites “Welcome to the Madhouse” and “Spectrummy Mummy” have already received the award, so I can’t put them on my list.

To honor of the 30th Anniversary of the SPD Foundation, the first set of blogs are all my friends from my SPD blogger network (in no particular order):

Pancakes Gone Awry

Special Kid, Special Parent

Our Life With SPD

Brotherly Love

These next three are ones I read every time they post because they are interesting, provocative, and a great way to pass the few quiet minutes I have to myself:

Asperger Ninja

Partly Sunny, Chance of Rain

Autism is Not a Four Letter Word

Of course, I have a list a mile wide and I’ve added some blog sites to the giant list of favorites, including my new friends Cheryl, Dawn and Graeme at The HMEA Blog, the new blog site for our local autism resource center.

So thank you for letting me say thank you here, both to my friends and family for the walk today and my cyber friends and family for all that you’ve given to me.

“You’ve been so kind and generous, I don’t know how you keep on giving
For your kindness I’m in debt to you
For your selflessness, my admiration
For everything you’ve done, you know I’m bound, I’m bound to
thank you for it….” – Kind and Generous by Natalie Merchant

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