Author Archives: One Great Mom

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About One Great Mom

Mommy, wife, author, educator, social media marketer and community builder, and lover of coffee and chocolate. Find out more about me at http://about.me/BrandiJordan.

Totally Grossed Out.

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We live on the corner and our side yard provides only about a 10-foot buffer from the sidewalk.  The people who lived here before were not very good with home repairs (read: they made it up as they went along), BUT they were amazingly good at landscaping.  We have beautiful trees and shrubs and flowers that, of their own free will, return year after year to make it look like we actually had something to do with it.  I love them.

The last few weeks Chloe has been going nuts when we let her outside at night.  She’s been burrowing under the Wisteria, crawling under the lilac bush, and will just stand in the kitchen and bark.  Fly chasing, ghost chasing, simply off her rocker, we thought.  Until yesterday.

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In Your Face, Dyslexia!

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Despite being severely dyslexic, my oldest son had to take the state’s mandated PSSA testing in March and April.  His accommodations per his IEP allow him to have parts of the test read to him, but the state, in all of it’s infinite, ahem, wisdom, decides every year which specific parts are okay to be read aloud.  For example, he can have the question type description read to him, but not the actual question in some sections.  So, he knows that he must “Choose the answer that is the most appropriate”, but he can’t have the question read.  For math.  Because in math he should be penalized because he can’t read on grade level.  That makes…sense.  Or not.

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So, THAT’S What’s Wrong. Who Knew.

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Yes, please! (Photo by jessicafm)

If I was going to optimize this post’s title it would probably be something like, “Torn Meniscus Treatment and Diagnosis.”  As it is, I’m going with, so, THAT’S what’s wrong.  Because really, who knew?

I went to see the Orthopedist yesterday for the first time ever since my knees started to hurt….about, oh, twenty years ago!  They’ve really been bothering me the last six months or so.  So much so that walking up and down the stairs?  That’s been tricky at times.  However, let me just say that about two years ago I was running twice a day and thought pushing through the pain was a good option even though my knees would turn black and blue on their own – and even that didn’t motivate me enough to get to the doctor.  So, what was it this time?  It was the slow creeping up of weight and the increasing lack of muscle tone.  I can’t walk or run on the treadmill, because the next day I can’t walk – like, at all.  It was time.   Continue reading →

Trade-Off

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A glimpse of home – notice the newly painted wall behind the radiator! Thank you, Nolan Painting!

We’ve been busy tackling home projects this month and it got me to thinking about our home, our neighborhood, and what the trade-off is for living here.  If you had asked me eight years ago if I ever thought we’d be living in the town where we’re living, I would have said a big HECK NO!  In fact, eight years ago we were still living in Phoenix, Arizona and, I have to admit, I miss my sweet, little house.  But, we decided to pack up our house, our kids (33 months and 9 months old at the time), our enormous dog, and two adorable kitties at the end of the summer and drive back home to the East Coast.  We wanted to be around family, so that our kids could grow up knowing their aunts and uncles and cousins and all of the extended family that they never knew we had.

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Catch-up…Like Ketchup Only Not So Much.

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Oh, how the days go by.  Really, was it the beginning of MAY when I last wrote?!  Ugh!  Let’s do a quick catch-up post, shall we?

May saw the adoption of this sweet girl:

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Meet Chloe, our new pup.  She’s a 5 year old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel/Cocker Spaniel Mix – which has the unfortunate breed name of “Cockalier”.  However, Super Dad is right when he says that it could be worse and they could have called them “King Cocks”.  And that is why he isn’t allowed to name dog breeds.

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