I delight in delighting.

me enjoying the leaves with the cox's last fall in nova scotia

I'm grateful to have this outlet to share my delights for lots of reasons. Today's reason: I am going CRAZy trying to get Monday's assignment done. Its an article review on Aphasia treatments for a paper I am going to have to write eventually. Its a lot more work than I anticipated and its taking me way too long in my opinion. However...just when I was about to have a meltdown about the whole thing, I remembered something.

"What have I delighted in today?"

And so...I share with you the answer to the question. Today I delighted in the invitation to help someone in need. Its a simple thing but it is truly the delight of my day so far.

I delight in the anticipation of general conference.

picture taken at the conference center last week for general relief society meeting

I get really excited for general conference, and this year is no exception.

I delight in reminders.

"Sometimes in life we can mistake local, low passing cloud cover for general darkness."

--Elder Maxwell.

I delight in the last days of summer.

This morning, I put my ipod on shuffle as I scrambled around to get ready.

What song should come on?

The Ataris'--Summer 1979

All the sudden it hit me...my last day of summer 2010 was yesterday!

Good thing I checked off my summer necessity before summer was over...

Getting a SNOW CONE!

A few weeks ago I went to the Avenues Street fair in Salt Lake.

Considering it was 4 blocks from my apartment and considering that sometimes I try to be a city girl and attempt to blend in, you know, be where all the other aves people were I went.

They had everything and I do mean everything.

My favorite things were the antiques and the snow cones.

I had my choice of thai food, chinese food, unidentifiable food, chocolate dipped bananas (a close second to a snowcone), fried twinkies and oreos...anything and everything,

but I had to go with the summer must...a snow cone.

If you haven't had one yet...its probably not too late!

I'm all about adding a few extra days on to summer!

I delight in treasures.

Today...Christin gave me treasures.

Last week when I talked to her on the phone, I told her I needed her to draw me some pictures since I don't have any for my place in Salt Lake.

She followed through.

Mom says she's been working on them all week, but she surprised even mom when she pulled them out of her 'color' bag and she had cut each picture out.

So adorable.

Each picture is of Christin (no surprise there). She's wearing a sash that says 'federal agent' in each picture as well. No doubt she copied the case to Miss. Congeniality (one of her fav's). I thought it was pretty clever.

Anyway, now I have 'mini-Christin's' I can hang up all over my apartment to remind me of how much I love her!!!

I delight in sincerity.

this is my favorite picture of my grandparents, (besides their engagement picture).

Tonight, I talked to Grandpa.

We've been playing phone tag for a week now.

I love talking to Grandpa because he's so sincere.

He's sincerely glad you call. He sincerely says I love you.

He sincerely cares about how you're doing.

And when he says that he's happy you're happy...he means it!

I delight in awareness.

pic from amazon

Consider yourself warned that I am writing this post under influence of Willard, the library which has held me captive for a while now and will hold me captive for a few more hours. However, I'm taking a break to share with you some things I've learned in this study session.

For the past hour, I have been pretending like I'm a parent whose child just received the diagnosis of Autism (its my assignment). I've been scouring the internet looking for resources to find out what the prognosis is for speech and language development. And you know what I've found? A lot of fluffy (general) information. I focus not so much on the fluff but on the sheer amount of information. How could a parent ever sift through it all? Even if they did how could they sift out what is true and what is just made up junk? I have no idea. Especially considering the highly emotional state they would inevitably be in as the embarked on the search.

I am now formulating and handout of suggestions for parents who find themselves in this situation, its been a mind opening experience. I'm seeing it on a new side. I've always heard my Mom's experiences of my brother being diagnosed with Autism and I'm seeing a new and challenging side as a clinician in training. I have a lot of opinions about the subject on things like the effect of labels in general, stereotypes held solely by society not based on any evidence, the DSM and the "many forces besides science [who] shape it, including politics, fashion and tradition" (Time Magazine, January 20, 2003, Cloud, pg. 103), the social memes (thank you dr. redmond) and the increasing use of the label of autism. I'm sure I'll oblige in further discussion another time.

For now and for me personally...I delight in the kind of awareness this movie has created. I am a fan. I own and have read the book. I also own and have watched the movie which was highly recognized at the recent Emmy awards. It is a unique and well portrayed view of one persons life with autism that anyone can learn something from. I recommend it.