Janet's Blog

It's been more than three months now since Uncle Gary left this earth. He knew he might not survive the surgery to repair his aortic aneurysm. After living with the aneurysm for years, and enduring several other procedures along the way, his last surgery was his surgeon's heroic, final effort to fix something that was finally beyond repair. Gary would be the first to tell you that he had lived a satisfying life. Except for one rather brief marriage, he lived alone in the house he had bought in North Platte. He had a large, loyal group of friends there, where he had retired after working there as a dispatcher and, eventually, communications supervisor, for the Nebraska State Patrol. I would characterize Gary as usually soft-spoken, diligent, determined, ethical, hard-working, and loyal to family and friends. He loved sharing his garden space with his neighbor, and sharing his produce with his friends. After his sister, my Aunt Ellen, was no longer around to make jelly, he learne...

These Kids Are Driving Me Crazy is a book for adults who work with kids with neurodivergence or mental health issues. It is currently available on Amazon in Kindle ebook format as well as paperback. I started the book several years ago, soon after I officially retired from teaching. However, as long as I was homeschooling my son, Levi, I didn't have time to  concentrate on writing this book. It was much simpler to publish my first children's book,  Grandma Whatcha Doing? , which is also  available on Amazon. I decided that the Covid-impacted winter would be a good time to buckle down and finish writing the book I abbreviate as  Crazy! --as in   "the thought of actually finishing this book is driving me crazy!" When my church invited me to participate in a book signing earlier, I was motivated to have this book ready, too.      Life is all about building relationships, but that can be hard to do in a school or extracurricular setting, or even at ...