Woven items to Raft of Dunster update…

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I took my items along to Raft this morning. They were displayed later today after I had left so I don’t have a photo for you. The image above is of the medieval yarn market and the Raft store is to the right, just out of view. Unfortunately nobody visited the shop this evening but Jen has very kindly offered to to keep my items on display until Monday afternoon. At this time of year there is so many other things going on. Also it’s Dunster by candlelight next weekend. See below 🙂

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Doesn’t the castle look amazing lit up like that? In the foreground, middle right, is the yarn market. They have a continual programme of musicians and singers during the festival. Fabulous 🙂

You can arrive by steam train if you wish…

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We love living here.

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New Research Suggests Social Issues are Down to Neurotypicals more than Autistics

Critical Neurodiversity

Picture by Joan M. Mas

Autism is seen, in popular representations, largely as a social and communication disorder. Formerly framed as stemming from an autistic lack of a “social instinct”, the current dominant idea is that something is deficient or missing in autistic social cognition. Often referred to as a cognitive deficit in “empathy” or “theory of mind”, much research on autistic social issues has focused on trying to clarify and detect this inside autistic brains and minds. The search for an elusive broken “theory of mind module” or “empathy mechanism” in the brain, and its ensuing cognitive manifestations, however, has led to conflicting results – with some scientists even concluding that autistic people feel too much empathy rather than too little.

Another view is that this is not simply an individual neuro-cognitive issue, but rather a wider social problem. Against the idea that autistic people have too much or…

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Church for the Socially Awkward (Part 1)

Jake Allen Sharp

Sometimes when too many things are going on at once, my senses get over stimulated. My attention gets easily diverted. In a room with lots of people having conversations, I could look directly at you and have absolutely no clue what you are saying. However, I do hear several other conversations in the room. I usually get a line or two of random sentences, from various conversations. So I may leave the room not knowing what we talked about, if we just met, I won’t even remember your name. But when I leave the room, I will know things like:

• Suzy is back in the hospital. She was in the hospital in March, but this is something different.
• Bob is loving his new job. He had been laid off, but luckily had some money saved up from some real estate investments. He found a job just before his money ran…

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Purse photos

I love this and I think my creative followers will too 🙂 Simply stunning…

Tola knitýr

At Pennsic, a wonderful gentleman was offering up macro photography at the Known World Arts and Sciences display, so naturally I took him up on it.  I just got the pictures back, and…wow.  I’ll let them speak for themselves.  You can see the rest of the photos he took at his website.

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Senses Working Overtime

This… “fundamental problem with Asperger’s is ‘hypersensitivity to experience’. Rather than people with Aspergers not feeling enough – the Markrams say that it’s actually the opposite and they feel too much. ” Please read on…

Autism in the Schools — A Personal Narrative

An Intense World

After losing a full time freelance to full time position because the company I was working for learned I have Asperger’s and, as they put it, they had “no intention of accommodating you,” I started substitute teaching for Dallas ISD. Because I live in Richardson, a suburb just north of Dallas, I was restricted, due to travel time, to which schools I can teach at. And through some sort of bizarre set of coincidences, I was somehow only been able to take special education classes — meaning, I was surrounded by autistic children almost every weekday for over half a year.

It was a very eye-opening. I saw and interacted with autistic children in elementary, middle, and high school. And I saw how nobody — not a single special education teacher, not a single teacher’s aide, let alone any of the regular teachers in which some of these students have…

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Hand-woven items heading to Dunster…

This morning I’ve been preparing labels and a hand written sign explaining who I am.

There’s a small boutique in Dunster where I buy some of my clothes. It’s a lovely store for me to shop in as it’s quiet and well lit with natural daylight. Jen, the manager, often has out of hours special shopping evenings and on Friday she is hosting such an event with the addition of a few local crafts people. Jen invited me to participate!  She understands about my sensory processing difficulties and is willing to display my wares even though I cannot be there. I will set my price and I think she will add a bit too that to cover her time. It’s only fair and I’m completely happy with that.

So I have eight woven items that are going to be displayed on the rungs of the shop’s wooden ladder. Sounds perfect doesn’t it? 😃

You can find out more about Raft here .

These are the lovelies that are heading to Raft of Dunster…

I shall update with another post later in the week. Bye for now and thanks for visiting me here in the cottage xxxx

Are we REALLY that inflexible?

Yes, this…

The Misadventures of Mama Pineapple

Less than a fortnight ago, I wrote about being “rigid”.

I explained about my need for schedules, plans, and organisational strategies. My need to prepare, and my alarm and anxiety in the face of uncertainty and ambiguity.

It’s there in my pre-assessment mapping to the DSM-V guidelines, under my response to Criterion B2, exemplified by:

“Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns or verbal/non-verbal behavious (e.g., extreme distress at small changes, difficulties with transitions, rigid thinking patterns[…])”

But as always, things are never that simple.

I mean, yes, of course, I need to organise and structure my life in the face of chaos.

Yes, of course, I struggle with change.

Yes, of course, I find “decision fatigue” harder to deal with than your average neurotypical person, because I am overwhelmed when faced with choice.

But the fact is, by the…

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Family and Dunster

We had family visiting today and following lunch and birthday cake 🎂 we walked around the castle 🏰 grounds…

I decided to take photos of details…

The day the world began to shrink.

Reblogging to help spread awareness…
Additional info can be found at http://www.changing-places.org/the_campaign/what_are_changing_places_toilets_.aspx

Ordinary Hopes

Three years ago today is when my son’s world started to shrink.

It is also the day that Bristol Children’s Hospital saved his life.

His spine was badly curved and crushing his internal organs. His ribcage on his left side was tucked inside his hip bone and he was struggling to eat or drink. Without the operation to insert spinal rods he probably only had one more year of life and it would have been a horrible way to die, crushed from the inside.

Adam has always been disabled.
He has always been a full time wheelchair user.
He has always needed assistance.
But he always had a great life.

Saving his life and improving his health should only have increased that greatness?

Why would it shrink?

My little 8 year old boy had weighed only 14 kilos. We had hoists at home but I could still carry him everywhere. He rode his bike, he…

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