busy sunday

** way harder than it should be to find free wifi in Manhattan....finally on a Starbucks during break. Crazy day but going well. this is typed up last night **


October 20, 2012
i'm here at my moms place after a very enjoyable and relaxing Shabbos. We spent some quality time together and some relatives were visitng from out of the area so we got to see them too. THis post will either get posted or not. Mommy does not have Internet access, crazy as it sounds, so I have less distractions and can just type but not sure if I'll be able to post anywhere. Ad went home right after Shabbos and left me with this cute little netbook so I can entertain myself. So its just me and the kids for right now and I'm excited for my super busy day tomorrow.
FOr those who dont know, Sunday is usually a slow day for me. I do the single Mom thing as Ad works (for himself but customers need him on weekends and its a good day for him to get thisngs done). So I usually either hang out with the kids at home and do laundry / cleaning / errands or sometimes I take the kids places. But I generally dont have much going on on Sundays.  The past few Sundays have basically been eaten up by holidays so in a way this is my first real free Sunday in a long time.

And as luck would have it, two pretty amazing things are going on tomorrow - events that Id normally be thrilled to just do one of and I couldnt believe they were taking place the same day. I'm going to try and swing both, they are both that important and that infrequently taking place.

The first is a full day course in a topic I am very interested in - its basically bridging two very succsesful and proven methods to deal with special needs kids, especially with autism. I won't bore you with details, if you are not in th e feild, it probably won't be too meaningful. But they offer this full day course once a year and I really believe in the 'Floortime'/DIR method as a method for helping really ANY kids, not just kids on the spectrum. THere was a time I wanted to get more certified and knowledgeable in this area and was even willing to travel to get certified, I believed in it that much. But school didnt always have funding and I didnt want to pay out of pocket. A couple of years back, the guy in charge of the Floortime technique died and it split into two different tracks, one of which was right in New Jersey. Last year they offered a similar course, but again, no funding. We found in the summer that they are offering this course again in October and my work has funding. Yay! Myself and two coworkers who are as interested as me in this topic signed up right away. 'It's months away and I'll figure out what to do with the kids as it gets closer'. And then I pushed it to the back of my mind.

Then a few weeks ago, we heard really exciting news. Bernadette is an awesome CMT gal who actually produced a movie about CMT. I met her mid-production at one CMT event and actually spoke at a question-answer thing, not sure if its on the video or not. Anyway, after years of hard work, it was finished and produced several months back. I really wanted to see it but couldnt make it to Philly for the opening. So a month or so ago we found out that Bernadettes film would be playing at a film festival right here in NYC!! Amazing! I saw that it was over a weekend and my first thought was 'I hope its not Friday nite or Saturday' (shabbos for me). It wasnt, it would be shown on a Sunday! Yay! So I went about trying to figure out who I could take and who would want to go with me. This one was busy, that one couldnt commit so early, the next one needed to watch his football games on Sunday. Sigh. By the time I turned around, two sessions had already been booked. I emailed the guy in charge and found out that there would be one more showing at 4:15! Yay! And not only that but my good online friend who I had yet to meet, Michele, said she bought a bunch of tickets! I asked Ad if he might be interested in taking off time from his busy day and joining and he said 'sure'. Great, I had a partner to go with and a chance to meet Michele and see the film, so I booked the two tickets and was set.

I looked at the date and was like 'why is that so familiar?'. After a quick search in my email, I noticed it was the same date as my conference. At first I was really upset. And I thought I guess id just cancel the conference. After a little more thinking, I realized I may just be able to swing both. Some thoughts that came to me were:  1) They are bothg in Midtown, one at 34th and 7th and one at 44th between 8th and 9th. Easy enough to get to both. 2) The kids are already taken care of (at that point I had enlisted my Moms babysitting services). 3) Its a good thing I didnt get one of the earlier movies - the 4:15 could work out. I checked the program and it would mean just missing one parent presentation and a question answer session. So I think it could work out.

And here I am, typing in the wee hours Sat nite / Sun morning. Need to be up in 6-7 hours to get ready for my busy day. I hope I can upload this at the conference if I get there early enough. So pumped to learn and question and than meet and greet and learn some more. I'm a drop nervouse that the film will be somewhat depressing as its mainly about Bernadette and I know shes very badly affected by the disease. HOpefully it wont be all negative and the good will far outweigh any bad.

Hope this goes up sometime during the day! Cant wait!