Food Renegade - win a sprout tray!

Food Renegade is giving away a 3-tray stackable sprout garden from Cultures for Health. Click here to enter.

Cheap therapy

There is a great website called http://www.craftbits.com/. It has a whole section devoted to "therapy crafts", which usually means just games with music and balloons and tea parties. But two of the ideas are absolutely wonderful and I just had to share.
The first one is a stress ball/yoyo. It is made by filling a balloon with flour, birdseed (haven't actually tried the birdseed) or a mixture of flour and water. Then you cut the neck off another balloon and stuff the first balloon in. This is a great stress ball. Make it a stress yoyo by tying and holding secure with tape a piece of thin elastic. THIS CRAFT ROCKS! I made one with just flour for my friend, with a cute crocheted smiley face drawstring bag. Then I made one with flour and water for myself. It is also a yoyo. If you have a trampoline, you can fling your stress ball yoyo at it and if you are watching anyone else do it, you can see the ball go splat and then return to its shape! It is very fun.
The other craft idea was to fill a balloon with 1/2 cup soil, 1/4 cup water, and some radish seeds. Use a funnel to fill the balloon, and then blow up the balloon. Hang it from the ceiling. You now have a miniature greenhouse! I just started one today, but I used sprout mix seeds instead of radish. Hope it works!

Aspies in the media

In the autism community, I hear a lot of complaints about how people with Asperger syndrome are depicted in the media. A TV show will try to introduce an aspie character, but they will follow some stereotypes, such as lack of emotion. But here's what I have to say about all that: characters meant to have Asperger syndrome depict stereotypes. Indeed they do. I am in total agreement. But what about those odd people whom everyone loves? Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter? Flint from Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs? (Isn't that such a cute movie?) The list is endless. Of course, these characters weren't created with a diagnosis of Asperger's in mind. But it seems that most people can relate to them; they are lovable. Maybe the producers only had nerdiness in mind, but what are the "nerds" of the 80s other than undiagnosed Aspies? So it is my opinion that if you try to make a character fit the criteria for an Asperger's diagnosis, you screw up horribly. But if the character is simply socially awkward in a lovable way, I don't think you can go too far wrong. It is these "hidden aspies" that, in my opinion, add depth to movies and TV programs.

My hen and chicks looks sad . . .

I was getting worried. My hen and chicks looked like it was bolting. Then I was overjoyed to find out that that meant it would flower, produce offspring, and then die. But the stalk came off and now it looks so sad. Do you think there's any hope?